Life of Luther Part 12

He took with him also, according to the rules of the Order, a brother of the Order, John Pezensteiner. The Wittenberg magistracy provided carriages and horses.

The way led past Leipzig, through Thuringia from Naumburg to Eisenach, then southward past Berka, Hersfeld, Grunberg, Friedberg, Frankfort, and Oppenheim. The herald rode on before in his coat of arms, and announced the man whose word had everywhere so mightily stirred the minds of people, and for whose future behaviour and fate friend and foe were alike anxious. Everywhere people collected to catch a glimpse of him.

On April 6 he was very solemnly received at Erfurt. The large majority of the university there were by this time full of enthusiasm for his cause. His friend Crotus, on his return from Italy, had been chosen Rector. The ban of excommunication had not been published by the university, and had been thrown into the water by the students. Justus Jonas was foremost in zeal; and even Erasmus, his honoured friend, had no longer been able to restrain him. Lange and others were active in preaching among the people.

Jonas hastened to Weimar to meet Luther on his approach. Forty members of the university, with the Rector at their head, went on horseback, accompanied by a number of others on foot, to welcome him at the boundary of the town. Luther had also a small retinue with him. Crotus expressed to him the infinite pleasure it was to see him, the great champion of the faith; whereupon Luther answered, that he did not deserve such praise, but he thanked them for their love. The poet Eoban also stammered out, as he said of himself, a few words; he afterwards described the progress in a set of Latin songs.

The following day, a Sunday, Luther spent at Erfurt. He preached there, in the church of the Augustine convent, a sermon which has been preserved. Beginning with the words, of the Gospel of the day, 'Peace be unto you,' he spoke of the peace which we find through Christ the Redeemer, by faith in whom and in his work of salvation we are justified, without any works or merit of our own; of the freedom with which Christians may act in faith and love; and of the duty of every man, who possessed this peace of G.o.d, so to order his work and conduct, that it shall be useful not only to himself but to his neighbour. This he said in protest against the justification by works taught by most preachers, against the system of Papal commands, and against the wisdom of heathen teachers, of an Aristotle or a Plato. Of his present personal position and the difficult path he had now to tread, he took no thought, but only of the general obligation he was under, whatever other men might teach; 'I will speak the truth and must speak it; for that reason I am here, and take no money for it.' During the sermon a crash was suddenly heard in the overweighted balconies of the crowded church, the doors of which were blocked with mult.i.tudes eager to hear him.

The crowd were about to rush out in a panic, when Luther exclaimed, 'I know thy wiles, thou Satan,' and quieted the congregation with the a.s.surance that no danger threatened, it was only the devil who was carrying on his wicked sport.

Luther also preached in the Augustine convents at Gotha and Eisenach. At Gotha the people thought it significant that after the sermon the devil tore off some stones from the gable of the church.

In the inns Luther liked to refresh himself with music, and often took up the lute.

At Eisenach, however, he was seized with an attack of illness, and had to be bled. From Frankfort he writes to Spalatin, who was then at Worms, that he felt since then a degree of suffering and weakness unknown to him before.

On the way he found a new imperial edict posted up, which ordered all his books to be seized, as having been condemned by the Pope and being contrary to the Christian faith. Charles V. by this edict had given satisfaction again to the legates, who were annoyed at Luther being summoned to Worms. Many doubted whether Luther, after this condemnation of his cause by the Emperor, would venture to present himself in person at Worms. He himself was alarmed, but travelled on.

Meanwhile at Worms disquietude and suspense prevailed on both sides.

Hutten from the Castle of Ebernburg sent threatening and angry letters to the Papal legates, who became really anxious lest a blow might be struck from that quarter. Aleander complained that Sickingen now was king in Germany, since he could command a following whenever and as large as he pleased. But in truth he was in no case ready for an attack at that moment. He still reckoned on being able, with his Church sympathies, to remain the Emperor's friend, and was just now on the point of taking a post of military command in his service. Some anxious friends of Luther's were afraid that, according to Papal law, the safe-conduct would not be observed in the case of a condemned heretic. Spalatin himself sent from Worms a second warning to Luther after he had left Frankfort, intimating that he would suffer the fate of Huss.

Meanwhile Glapio, on the other side, no doubt with the knowledge and consent of his imperial master, made one more attempt in a very unexpected manner to influence Luther, or at least to prevent him from going to Worms. He went with the imperial chamberlain, Paul von Armsdorf, to Sickingen and Hutten at the Castle of Ebernburg, spoke of Luther as he had formerly done to Bruck, in an unconstrained and friendly manner, and offered to hold a peaceable interview with Luther in Sickingen's presence. Armsdorf at the same time earnestly dissuaded Hutten from his attacks and threats against the legates, and made him the offer of an imperial pension if he would desist.

Had Luther agreed to this proposal and gone to the Ebernburg, he could not have reached Worms in time; the safe-conduct promised him would have been no longer valid, and the Emperor would have been free to act against him. Nevertheless Sickingen entered into the proposal. The danger threatening Luther at Worms must have appeared still greater to him, and Luther could then have enjoyed the protection of his castle, which he had offered him before. Martin Butzer, the theologian from Schlettstadt, happened then to be with Sickingen; he had already met Luther at Heidelberg in 1518, had then learned to know him, and had embraced his opinions. He was now commissioned to convey this invitation to him at Oppenheim, which lay on Luther's road.

But Luther continued on his way. He told Butzer that Glapio would be able to speak with him at Worms. To Spalatin he replied, though Huss were burnt, yet the truth was not burnt; he would go to Worms, though there were as many devils there as there were tiles on the roofs of the houses.

On April 16, at ten o'clock in the morning, Luther entered Worms. He sat in an open carriage with his three companions from Wittenberg, clothed in his monk's habit. He was accompanied by a large number of men on horseback, some of whom, like Jonas, had joined him earlier in his journey, others, like some gentlemen belonging to the Elector's court, had ridden out from Worms to receive him. The imperial herald rode on before. The watchman blew a horn from the tower of the cathedral on seeing the procession approach the gate.

Thousands streamed hither to see Luther. The gentlemen of the court escorted him into the house of the Knights of St. John, where he lodged with two counsellors of the Elector. As he stepped from his carriage he said, 'G.o.d will be with me.' Aleander, writing to Rome, said that he looked around with the eyes of a demon.

Crowds of distinguished men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who were anxious to know him personally, flocked daily to see him.

On the evening of the following day he had to appear before the Diet, which was a.s.sembled in the Bishop's palace, the residence of the Emperor, not far from where Luther was lodging. He was conducted thither by side streets, it being impossible to get through the crowds a.s.sembled in the main thoroughfare to see him. On his way into the hall where the Diet was a.s.sembled, tradition tells us how the famous warrior, George von Frundsberg, clapped him on the shoulder, and said: 'My poor monk! my poor monk! thou art on thy way to make such a stand as I and many of my knights have never done in our toughest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause, then forward in the name of G.o.d, and be of good courage--G.o.d will not forsake thee.' The Elector had given Luther as his advocate the lawyer Jerome Schurf, his Wittenberg colleague and friend.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 25.-LUTHER. (From an engraving by Cranach, in 1521.)]

When at length, after waiting two hours, Luther was admitted to the Diet, Eck, [Footnote: This Eck must not be confused with the other John Eck, the theologian.] the official of the Archbishop of Treves, put to him simply, in the name of the Emperor, two questions, whether he acknowledged the books (pointing to them on a bench beside him) to be his own, and next, whether he would retract their contents or persist in them. Schurf here exclaimed, 'Let the t.i.tles of the books be named.' Eck then read them out. Among them there were some merely edifying writings, such as 'A Commentary on the Lord's Prayer,' which had never been made the subject of complaint.

Luther was not prepared for this proceeding, and possibly the first sight of the august a.s.sembly made him nervous. He answered in a low voice, and as if frightened, that the books were his, but that since the question as to their contents concerned the highest of all things, the Word of G.o.d and the salvation of souls, he must beware of giving a rash answer, and must therefore humbly entreat further time for consideration.

After a short deliberation the Emperor instructed Eck to reply that he would, out of his clemency, grant him a respite till the next day.

So Luther had again, on April 18, a Thursday, to appear before the Diet. Again he had to wait two hours, till six o'clock. He stood there in the hall among the dense crowd, talking unconstrained and cheerfully with the amba.s.sador of the Diet, Peutinger, his patron at Augsburg.

After he was called in, Eck began by reproaching him for having wanted time for consideration. He then put the second question to him in a form more befitting and more conformable with the wishes of the members of the Diet: 'Wilt thou defend _all_ the books acknowledged by thee to be thine, or recant some part?' Luther now answered with firmness and modesty, in a well-considered speech. He divided his works into three cla.s.ses. In some of them he had set forth simple evangelical truths, professed alike by friend and foe.

Those he could on no account retract. In others he had attacked corrupt laws and doctrines of the Papacy, which no one could deny had miserably vexed and martyred the consciences of Christians, and had tyrannically devoured the property of the German nation; if he were to retract these books, he would make himself a cloak for wickedness and tyranny. In the third cla.s.s of his books he had written against individuals, who endeavoured to shield that tyranny, and to subvert G.o.dly doctrine. Against these he freely confessed that he had been more violent than was befitting. Yet even these writings it was impossible for him to retract, without lending a hand to tyranny and G.o.dlessness. But in defence of his books he could only say in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, 'If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?' If anyone could do so, let him produce his evidence and confute him from the sacred writings, the Old Testament and the Gospel, and he would be the first to throw his books into the fire. And now, as in the course of his speech he had sounded a new challenge to the Papacy, so he concluded by an earnest warning to Emperor and Empire, lest by endeavouring to promote peace by a condemnation of the Divine Word, they might; rather bring a dreadful deluge of evils, and thus give an unhappy and inauspicious beginning to the reign of the n.o.ble young Emperor. He said not these things as if the great personages who heard him stood in any need of his admonitions, but because it was a duty that he owed to his native Germany, and he could not neglect to discharge it.

Luther, like Eck, spoke in Latin, and then, by desire, repeated his speech with equal firmness in German. Schurf, who was standing by his side, declared afterwards with pride, 'how Martin had made this answer with such bravery and modest candour, with eyes upraised to Heaven, that he and everyone was astonished.'

The princes held a short consultation after this harangue. Then Eck, commissioned by the Emperor, sharply reproved him for having spoken impertinently and not really answered the question put to him. He rejected his demand that evidence from Scripture might be brought against him, by declaring that his heresies had already been condemned by the Church, and in particular by the Council of Constance, and such judgments must suffice if anything were to be held settled in Christianity. He promised him, however, if he would retract the offensive articles, that his other writings should be fairly dealt with, and finally demanded a plain answer 'without horns' to the question, whether he intended to adhere to all he had written, or would retract any part of it.

To this Luther replied he would give an answer 'with neither horns nor teeth.' Unless he were refuted by proofs from Scripture, or by evident reason, his conscience bound him to adhere to the Word of G.o.d which he had quoted in his defence. Popes and Councils, as was clear, had often erred and contradicted themselves. He could, not, therefore, and he would not, retract anything, for it was neither safe nor honest to act against one's conscience.

Eck exchanged only a few more words with him in reply to his a.s.sertion that Councils had erred. 'You cannot prove that, 'said Eck. 'I will pledge myself to do it,' was Luther's answer. Pressed and threatened by his enemy, he concluded with the famous words: 'Here I stand, I can do, no otherwise. G.o.d help me. Amen.'

The Emperor reluctantly broke up the Diet, at about eight o'clock in the evening. Darkness had meanwhile come on; the hall was lighted with torches, and the audience were in a state of general excitement and agitation. Luther was led out; whereupon an uproar arose among the Germans, who thought that he had been taken prisoner. As he stood among the heated crowd, Duke Erich of Brunswick sent him a silver tankard of Eimbeck beer, after having first drank of it himself.

On reaching his lodging, 'Luther,' to use the words of a Nuremberger present there, 'stretched out his hands, and with a joyful countenance exclaimed, "I am through! I am through!"' Spalatin says: 'He entered the lodging so courageous, comforted and joyful in the Lord, that he said before others and myself, "if he had a thousand heads, he would rather have them all cut off than make one recantation.' He relates also how the Elector Frederick, before his supper, sent for him from Luther's dwelling, took him into his room and expressed to him his astonishment, and delight at Luther's speech. 'How excellently did, Father Martin speak both in Latin and German before the Emperor and the Orders. He was bold enough, if not too much so.' The Emperor, on the contrary, had been so little impressed by Luther's personality, and had understood so little of it, that he fancied the writings ascribed to him must have been written by some one else. Many of his Spaniards had pursued Luther, as he left the Diet, with hisses and shouts of scorn.

Luther, by refusing thus point-blank to retract, effectually destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the Church who still wished for reform. Nor was any union possible with those who, while looking to a truly representative Council as the best safeguard against the tyranny of a Pope, were anxious also to obtain at such a Council a secure and final settlement of all questions of Christian faith and morals. It was these very Councils about which Eck purposely called on Luther for a declaration; and Luther's words on this point might well have been considered by the Elector as 'too bold.' Aleander, who had used such efforts to prevent Luther's being heard, was now well satisfied with the result. But Luther remained faithful to himself. True it was that he had often formerly spoken of yielding in mere externals, and of the duty of living in love and harmony, and respecting the weaknesses of others; and his conduct during the elaboration of his own Church system will show us how well he knew to accommodate himself to the time, and, where perfection was impossible, to be content with what was imperfect.

But the question here was not about externals, or whether a given proceeding were judicious or not for the attainment of an object admittedly good. It was a question of confessing or denying the truth--the highest and holiest truths, as he expressed it, relating to G.o.d and the salvation of man. In this matter his conscience was bound.

And the trial thus offered for his endurance was not yet over. On the morning of the 19th, the Emperor sent word to the Estates, that he would now send Luther back hi safety to Wittenberg, but treat him as a heretic. The majority insisted on attempting further negotiations with him through a Committee specially appointed. These were conducted accordingly by the Elector of Treves, to whom Frederick the Wise and Milt.i.tz had once been anxious to submit Luther's affair. The friendliness, and the visible interest in his cause, with which Luther now was urged, was more calculated to move him than Eck's behaviour at the Diet. He himself bore witness afterwards how the Archbishop had shown himself more than gracious to him, and would willingly have arranged matters peaceably. Instead of being urged simply to retract all his propositions condemned by the Pope, or his writings directed against the Papacy, he was referred in particular to those articles in which he rejected the decisions of the Council of Constance. He was desired to submit in confidence to a verdict of the Emperor and the Empire, when his books should be submitted to judges beyond suspicion. After that he should at least accept the decision of a future Council, unfettered by any acknowledgment of the previous sentence of the Pope. So freely and independently of the Pope did this Committee of the German Diet, including several bishops and Duke George of Saxony, proceed in negotiating with a Papal heretic. But everything was shipwrecked on Luther's firm reservation that the decision must not be contrary to the Word of G.o.d; and on that question his conscience would not allow him to renounce the right of judging for himself.

After two days' negotiations, he thus, on April 25, according to Spalatin, declared himself to the Archbishop: 'Most gracious Lord, I cannot yield; it must happen with me as G.o.d wills;' and continued: 'I beg of your Grace that you will obtain for me the gracious permission of His Imperial Majesty that I may go home again, for I have now been here for ten days and nothing yet has been effected.'

Three hours later the Emperor sent word to Luther that he might return to the place he came from, and should be given a safe-conduct for twenty-one days, but would not be allowed to preach on the way.

Free residence, however, and protection at Wittenberg, in case Luther were condemned by the Empire, was more than even Frederick the Wise would be able to a.s.sure him. But he had already laid his plan for the emergency. Spalatin refers to it in these words: 'Now was my most gracious, Lord somewhat disheartened; he was certainly fond of Dr. Martin, and was also most unwilling to act against the Word of G.o.d, or to bring upon himself the displeasure of the Emperor. Accordingly, he devised means how to get Dr. Martin out of the way for a time, until matters might be quietly settled, and caused Luther also to be informed, the evening before he left Worms, of his scheme for getting him out of the way. At this Dr. Martin, out of deference to his Elector, was submissively content, though, certainly, then and at all times he would much rather have gone courageously to the attack.'

The very next morning, Friday the 26th, Luther departed. The imperial herald went behind him, so as not to attract notice. They took the usual road to Eisenach. At Friedberg Luther dismissed the herald, giving him a letter to the Emperor and the Estates, in which he defended his conduct at Worms, and his refusal to trust in the decision of men, by saying that when G.o.d's Word and things eternal were at stake, one's trust and dependence should be placed, not on one man or many men, but on G.o.d alone. At Hersfeld, where Abbot Crato, in spite of the ban, received him with all marks of honour, and again at Eisenach, he preached, notwithstanding the Emperor's prohibition, not daring to let the Word of G.o.d be bound. From Eisenach, whilst Swaven, Schurf, and several other of his companions went straight on, he struck southward, together with Amsdorf and Brother Pezensteiner, in order to go and see his relations at Mohra. Here, after spending the night at the house of his uncle Heinz, he preached the next morning, Sat.u.r.day, May 4. Then, accompanied by some of his relations, he took the road through Schweina, past the Castle of Altenstein, and then across the back of the Thuringian Forest to Waltershausen and Gotha.

Towards evening, when near Altenstein, he bade leave of his relations.

About half an hour farther on, at a spot where the road enters the wooded heights, and ascending between hills along a brook, leads to an old chapel, which even then was in ruins, and has now quite disappeared, armed hors.e.m.e.n attacked the carriage, ordered it to stop with threats and curses, pulled Luther out of it, and then hurried him away at full speed. Pezensteiner had run away as soon as he saw them approach.

Amsdorf and the coachman were allowed to pa.s.s on; the former was in the secret, and pretended to be terrified, to avoid any suspicion on the part of his companion. The Wartburg lay to the north, about eight miles distant, and had been the starting-point of the hors.e.m.e.n, as it now was their goal; but precaution made them ride first in an eastern direction with Luther. The coachman afterwards related how Luther in the haste of the flight dropped a grey hat he had worn. And now Luther 'was given a horse to ride. The night was dark, and about eleven o'clock they arrived at the stately castle, situated above Eisenach. Here he was to be kept as a knight-prisoner. The secret was kept as strictly as possible towards friend and foe. For many weeks afterwards even Frederick's brother John had no idea of it, on the contrary, he wrote to Frederick that Luther, he had heard, was residing at one of Sickingen's castles.

Among his friends and followers the terrible news had spread, immediately upon his capture, that he had been made away with by his enemies.

At Worms, however, while the Pope was concluding an alliance with Charles against France, the Papal legate Aleander, by commission of the Emperor, prepared the edict against Luther on the 8th of May. It was not, however, until the 25th, after Frederick, the Elector of the Palatinate, and a great part of the other members of the Diet had already left, that it was deemed advisable to have it communicated to the rest of the Estates; nevertheless it was antedated the 8th, and issued 'by the unanimous advice of the Electors and Estates.' It p.r.o.nounced upon Luther, applying the customary strong expressions of Papal bulls, the ban and re-ban; no one was to receive him any longer, or feed him &c., but wherever he was found, he was to be seized and handed over to the Emperor.

PART IV.

_FROM THE DIET OF WORMS TO THE PEASANTS' WAR AND LUTHER'S MARRIAGE_.

CHAPTER I.

LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG, TO HIS VISIT TO WITTENBERG IN 1521.

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 G.o.d would have it so, not willing, because he would far rather have stood up for the Word of G.o.d in public, but of such an honour G.o.d had not yet found him worthy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 n.o.body 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.