Luther, after being brought to the fortress, had to live there as a knight-prisoner. He was called Squire George, he grew a stately beard, and doffed his monk's cowl for the dress of a knight, with a sword at his side. The governor of the castle, Herr von Berlepsch, entertained him with all honour, and he was liberally supplied with food and drink. He was free to go about as he pleased in the apartments of the castle, and was permitted, in the company of a trusty servant, to take rides and walks out of doors. Thus, as he writes to a friend, he sat up aloft, in the region of the birds, as a curious prisoner, nolens volens, whether he willed or no; willing, because God would have it so, not willing, because he would far rather have stood up for the Word of God in public, but of such an honour God had not yet found him worthy.
[Illustration: Fig 26—LUTHER as "Squire George." (From a woodcut by
Cranach.)]
Care was also taken at once that he should be able to correspond at least by letter with his friends, and especially with those at Wittenberg. These letters were sent by messengers of the Elector through the hands of Spalatin. When Luther afterwards heard that a rumour had got abroad as to his place of residence, he sent a letter to Spalatin, in which he said: 'A report, so I hear, is spread that Luther is staying at the Wartburg near Eisenach; the people suppose this to be the case, because I was taken prisoner in the wood below; but while they believe that, I sit here safely hidden. If the books that I publish betray me, then I shall change my abode; it is very strange that nobody thinks of Bohemia.' This letter, so Luther thought, Spalatin might let fall into the hands of some of his spying opponents, so as to lead them astray in their conjecture. Spalatin made no use of this naive attempt at trickery. He could hardly have done much in the matter, and would probably have directed those who saw through the meaning of the letter straight to the Wartburg. He succeeded, however, remarkably well in keeping the spot a secret, even after it was generally guessed and known that Luther was to be found somewhere in Saxony. As late as 1528, Luther's friend Agricola remarks that he had hitherto remained concealed, whilst some even sought to hear of him by questioning of the devil; and more than twenty years later Luther's opponent Cochlaeus declares that he was hidden at Alstedt in Thuringia.
There was no imperial power at that time which might have deemed it necessary or expedient to track out the man who had been condemned by the Edict of Worms. The Emperor had left Germany again, and was engaged in a war with France.
In his quiet solitude Luther threw himself again without delay into the work of his calling, so far as he could here perform it. This was the study of Scripture and the active exercise of his own pen in the service of God's Word. He had now more time than before to investigate the meaning of the Bible in its original languages. 'I sit here,' he writes to Spalatin ten days after his arrival, 'the whole day at leisure, and read the Greek and Hebrew Bible.'
His sojourn at the castle began in the festival time between Easter
and Whitsuntide. He wrote at once an exposition of the sixty-eighth
Psalm, with particular reference to the events of Ascension and
Whitsuntide.
For the liberation of the laity from the Papal yoke, he set at once further to work by composing a treatise 'On Confession, whether the Pope has power to order it.' He commends confession, when a man humbles himself and, receives forgiveness of God through the lips of a Christian brother, but he denounces any compulsion in the matter, and warns men against priests who pervert it into a means of increasing their own power. He now expressed his public thanks to Sickingen, and dedicated the book to him—'To the just and firm Francis von Sickingen, my especial lord and patron.' In this dedication he repeats the fears he had long expressed of the judgment that the clergy would bring upon themselves by their hatred of improvement and their obstinacy. 'I have,' he says, 'often offered peace, I have offered them an answer, I have disputed, but all has been of no avail: I have met with no justice, but only with vain malice and violence, nothing more. I have been simply called on to retract, and threatened with every evil if I refused.' Then speaking of the critical moment at which he was obliged to withdraw, 'I can do no more,' he says, 'I am now out of the game. They have now time to change that which cannot, and should not, and will not be tolerated from them any longer. If they refuse to make the change, another will make it for them, without their thanks, one who will not teach like Luther with letters and words, but with deeds. Thank God, the fear and awe of those rogues at Borne is now less than it was.' And again, speaking of Roman insolence: 'They push on blindly ahead—there is no listening or reasoning. Well, I have seen; more water-bubbles than even theirs, and once such an outrageous smoke that it managed to blot out the sun, but the smoke never lasted, and the sun still shines. I shall continue to keep the truth bright and expose it, and am as far from fearing my ungracious masters as they are ready to despise me.'
Luther now finished his exposition of the Magnificat, which, with loving devotion to the subject, he had intended for Prince John Frederick. He resumed also his work on the Sunday Gospels and Epistles. The first part of it he had already published in Latin. But he gave it now a new, and for the Christian people of Germany, a most important character, by writing in German his comments on these passages of Scripture, including those already dealt with in Latin, which formed the text of the sermon for the day. Thus arose his first collection of sermons, the 'Church-Postills.' By November he had already sent the first part to the press, though the work progressed but slowly. In a simple exposition of the words of the Bible, without any artificial and rhetorical additions or ornament, but with a constant and cheerful regard to practical life, with an unceasing attention to the primary questions of salvation, and in pithy, clear, and thoroughly popular language, he began to lay before his readers the sum total of Christian truth, and impress it on their hearts. The work served as much for the instruction and support of other preachers of the gospel now newly proclaimed, as for the direct teaching and edifying of the members of their flocks. It advanced, however, only by degrees, and Luther after many years was obliged to have it finished by friends, who collected together printed or written copies of his various sermons.
For the special comfort and advice of his Wittenberg congregation Luther wrote an exposition of the thirty-seventh Psalm. Nor with less energy and force did he wield his pen during June, in a vigorous and learned polemical reply in Latin to the Louvain theologian, Latomus.
And yet Luther all this while continued to lament that he had to sit there so idly in his Patmos: he would rather be burnt in the service of God's Word than stagnate there alone. The bodily rest which took the place of his former unwearied activity in the pulpit and the lecturer's chair, together with the sumptuous fare now substituted for the simple diet of the convent, were no doubt the cause of the physical suffering which for a long time had grievously distressed him and put his patience to the test, and which must have weighed upon his spirits. In his distress he once thought of going to Erfurt to consult physicians. Some strong remedies, however, which Spalatin got for him, gave him temporary relief.