These fifty theses of Tetzel's were strictly in the spirit of the scholastic theology in vogue, a spirit which the experience of such councils as those of Basle, Constance, and Florence had contributed not a little to evoke.
Luther at once perceived what a stumbling-block Tetzel had thrown in his way. He did not attempt to dispute the fifty theses. Had he done so he must have plainly acknowledged himself a heretic. As matters stood this would have been premature, would have spoiled all, would have ruined him and his cause. Tetzel had not designated Luther personally as a heretic. But Luther chose to assume that he had done so, and forthwith let loose a storm against him of such brutal and malignant invective as Luther alone was capable of. Adopting the tone of an injured man, a man shamefully misunderstood, he filled Germany with hypocritical asseverations of his orthodoxy and his devotion to the see of Peter. All his party, all Tetzel's opponents, followed in his wake. The heathen-minded humanists, in particular, singled out Tetzel as the butt of their ribald satire, holding him up to scorn and execration as the very impersonation of every imaginable monastic abuse and scandal. The persecuted man found little or no shelter from the tempest. The friends of religion and the church were intimidated, confounded, paralyzed; apathy, indecision, cowardice, delusion, prevailed among the guardians of the faith, prevailed among the German bishops. Rome herself was slow and lenient in her measures. Although she cited Luther to come and answer for himself to her, she consented, in the persons of Cajetan and Miltiz, to go to him. Cajetan, all patience and condescension, allowed himself to be trifled with and duped. Miltiz truckled to Luther, reviled Tetzel, betrayed his trust. In vain did Hermann Rab, provincial of the Saxon Dominicans, address a touching letter in Tetzel's defence to Miltiz. It is dated at Leipsic, January 3d, 1519, and is quoted in full by Dr. Gröne:
"Truly I should not know where to find a man (observes Hermann Rab in this letter) who has done and suffered, who still suffers so much for the honor of the apostolic see, as our venerable father, Magister John Tetzel. If his holiness only knew it, I doubt not but that he would distinguish him in a worthy manner. With what lies and slanders beyond number he is overwhelmed, all the street-corners, where they resound in your ears, attest. I only wish your excellence had heard the sermon he preached on the feast of our Lord's circumcision, for then you would not have failed to convince yourself what his sentiments are, and always have been, toward the holy see."
Miltiz commanded Tetzel to retire to his cell at Leipsic. He obeyed. His career was now terminated. He never ascended the pulpit again. The fatigues and excitement he had undergone; the persecution he had suffered; his deserted and forlorn condition; above all, the course of events, so ominous for the church and the papacy, to which he clung with all his soul; these things preyed upon his mind and body to such a degree that his health gave way, and he died in a state of profound melancholy in the month of August of the above-mentioned year. He is supposed to have been about sixty years old:
"Tetzel could not have set up a better monument to his own character (writes Dr. Gröne) than he did in the grief and affliction which hastened his end. The ruin of the church, the wild infidelity, and unspeakable disorders which the triumph of Luther must needs entail on Germany—this was the worm that gnawed his vital thread. It broke his heart to be forced to see how the sincere champions of the old church truths were left alone, were slandered, despised, and misunderstood by their own party, while the mockers and revilers of the immutable doctrine won applause on all sides."
In a chapter devoted to a refutation of the infamous calumnies and profane anecdotes recorded of Tetzel, it is shown by Dr. Gröne that they were mostly borrowed from the Decameron of Boccaccio and a congenial German production, styled Der Pfaffe Amis. For example: Tetzel, being anxious to impart extraordinary interest to the indulgence he had to preach, once told the people he would show them a feather which the devil, in combating with the archangel Michael, had plucked from the archangel's wing. But a couple of godless wags, entering his chamber during his absence, stole the feather out of the box in which it was kept, and put some coals from the fireplace in its stead. Tetzel, ignorant of the theft, mounts the pulpit, box in hand, and declaims with great fervor on the wonderful qualities of his heavenly feather. Then opening the box, finds it full of coals. Nothing abashed, he cries out, "What wonder if, among so many relic-boxes as I possess, I have taken the wrong one?" And forthwith he extols the miraculous power of the very coals on which St. Lawrence was broiled.
Another merry tale of the sort is the following: "Tetzel," they, say, "once desired to lodge with the sacristan at Zwickau. But the sacristan excused himself as being too poor to entertain so renowned a guest. 'We'll see that you have money enough,' said Tetzel, 'only look what saint it is in the calendar to-morrow.' The sacristan found the name of Juvenalis. 'A very unlucky name, he regretted to say, because it was so little known.' 'But we'll make it known,' replied Tetzel. 'Ring the bells to-morrow as if for a festival, and let high mass be sung.' The sacristan obeyed, and the people throng the church. After the gospel Tetzel ascends the pulpit, and speaks: 'Good people, to-day I have something to tell you which, if I were to withhold it, would be the very ruin of your salvation. Hitherto, you know, we have always invoked such and such saints, but now they have grown old, and are tired of hearing and helping us. To-day you commemorate Juvenalis, and although until now he has been unknown, let us none the less honor him with all our hearts. For as he is a new saint, he will be all the more indefatigable in praying for us. Juvenalis, my friends, was a holy martyr, whose blood was innocently shed. Now, if you would also participate in his innocence before God, let each of you put an offering on the altar during mass. And do you, ye great and rich ones, precede the rest with your good example.'"
Again, in 1512, Tetzel, after having preached at Zwickau, had got all his money packed up, and was about to depart. But the parish priest, with his chaplain and clerk, came running to him, bitterly complaining that, while he had provided so splendidly for himself, they had not got as much by the indulgence as would pay for one jolly day. "Truly I am very sorry," answers Tetzel, "but why did you not tell me sooner? However, ring the bells again to-morrow; there may still, perhaps, be something left for you." No sooner said than done. The people all came flocking to church, and Tetzel, ascending the pulpit, begins: "Dearly beloved, true I had intended to depart this very day, but last night I heard in your church-yard a poor soul moaning and weeping miserably, and imploring some one to come to her relief, and deliver her out of purgatory. This caused me to remain here to day, to have mass said and offerings made for this poor soul. Now, whoever among us should neglect to make an offering would thereby prove that he has no compassion on the poor soul, or else that he must either be a fornicator or an adulterer, whose conscience tells him he is not worthy to take part in this good work. And that you may know what an urgent case it is, I myself will be the first to present my offering."
Of course all the people hasten to follow so edifying an example, they even borrow money from one another, for no one wishes to be thought a fornicator or an adulterer.
In citing such absurd stories as the above, along with many others of a still more profane description, Dr. Gröne shows that, in several instances, they were the same as were employed to slander the character of Bernardin Samson, the Franciscan preacher of Pope Leo's indulgence in Switzerland. He also cites two contemporary documents, one of them signed by the authorities of the town of Halle, the other by John Pels, prior of the Dominican convent of Nevenwerk, denying in emphatic terms that Tetzel, in his sermons, ever blasphemed the Blessed Virgin in the shocking way he was accused of doing. In fine, had he really been the monster of depravity, the shameless drunkard, swindler, liar, blasphemer, and adulterer his enemies make of him, it is but too obvious that, instead of opposing, he would have joined Luther, whose earliest and most ardent disciples were principally degenerate monks, in love with the Lutheran doctrine of the futility of good works—monks, in a word, corresponding in every respect to the Protestant descriptions, but opposite in character as day and night to the true nature of John Tetzel.