Life of Luther Part 8

In this speech, however, he already declared that the chief object of cla.s.sical studies was to teach theologians to draw from the original fount of Holy Scripture. He himself delivered a lecture on the New Testament immediately after one on Homer. And it was the Lutheran conception of the doctrine of salvation which he adopted in his own continued study of the Bible.

The year of his arrival at Wittenberg he celebrated Luther in a poem. He accompanied him to Leipzig. During the disputation there he is said to have a.s.sisted his friend with occasional suggestions or notes of argument, and thereby to have roused the anger of Eck. He now took the lowest theological degree of bachelor, to qualify himself for giving theological lectures on Scripture. He who from early youth had enjoyed so abundantly the treasures of Humanistic learning, and had won for himself the admiration of an Erasmus, now found in this study of Scripture a 'heavenly ambrosia' for his soul, and something much higher than all human wisdom. And already, in independent judgment on the traditional doctrines of the Church, he not only kept pace with Luther but even outwent him. It was he who attacked the dogma of transubstantiation, according to which in the ma.s.s the bread and wine of the sacrament are so changed by the consecration of the priest into the body and blood of our Lord, that nothing really remains of their original substance, but they only appear to the senses to retain it.

Luther at once recognised with joy the marvellous wealth of talent and knowledge in his new colleague, whose senior he was by fourteen years, besides being far ahead of him in theological study and experience. We have seen, during Luther's stay at Augsburg, how closely his heart clung to Melancthon and to the 'sweet intercourse'

with him; we know of no other instance where Luther formed a friendship so rapidly. The more intimately he knew him, the more highly he esteemed him. When Eck spoke slightingly of him as a mere paltry grammarian, Luther exclaimed, 'I, the doctor of philosophy and theology, am not ashamed to yield the point, if this grammarian's mind thinks differently to myself; I have done so often already, and do the same daily, because of the gifts with which G.o.d has so richly filled this fragile vessel; I honour the work of my G.o.d in him.' 'Philip,' he said at another time, 'is a wonder to us all; if the Lord will, he will beat many Martins as the mightiest enemy to the devil and Scholasticism;' and again, 'This little Greek is even my master in theology.' Such were Luther's words, not uttered to particular friends of Melancthon, in order to please them, nor in public speeches or poetry, in which at that time friends showered fulsome flattery on friends, but in confidential letters to his own most intimate friends, to Spalatin, Staupitz, and others. So willing and ready was he, whilst himself on the road to the loftiest work and successes, to give precedence to this new companion whom G.o.d had given him. Luther also interested himself with Spalatin to obtain a higher salary for Melancthon, and thus keep him at Wittenberg. In common with other friends, he endeavoured to induce him to marry; for he needed a wife who would care for his health and household better than he did himself. His marriage actually took place in 1520, after he had at first resisted, in order to allow no interruption to his highest enjoyment, his learned studies.

At the university Luther was also busily engaged with the necessary preparations for many lectures that were not theological. He steadily persisted in his efforts to secure the appointment of a competent professor of Hebrew. He also worked hard to get a qualified printer, the son of the printer Letter at Leipzig, to settle at the university, and set up there for the first time a press for three languages, German, Latin, and Greek. For everything of this kind that was submitted to the Elector, who took a constant interest in the prosperity of the university, his friend Spalatin was his confidential intermediary. As early as 1518 Luther had expressed to him the wish and hope that Wittenberg, in honour of Frederick the Wise, should, by a new arrangement of study, become the occasion and pattern for a general reform of the universities.

In addition to his constant and arduous labours of various kinds, he took part also in the social intercourse of his colleagues, although he complained of the time he lost by invitations and entertainments.

In the town church at Wittenberg he continued his active duties not only on Sundays but during the week. His custom was to expound consecutively in a course of sermons the Old and New Testaments, and he explained particularly to children and those under age, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. This work alone, he once complained to Spalatin, required properly a man for it and nothing else. These services he gave to the town congregation gratuitously.

The magistracy were content to recognise them by trifling presents now and then; for instance, by a gift of money on his return from Leipzig, where he had had to live on his own very scanty means. In simple, powerful, and thoroughly popular language, Luther sought to bring home to the people who filled his church, the supreme truth he had newly gained. Here in particular he employed his own peculiar German, as he employed it also in his writings.

Both he and Melancthon formed a close personal intimacy with several worthy townsmen of Wittenberg. The most prominent man among them, the painter Lucas Cranach, from Bamberg, owner of a house and estate at Wittenberg, the proprietor of an apothecary's and also of a stationer's business, besides being a member of the magistracy, and finally burgomaster, belonged to the circle of Luther's nearest friends. Luther took a genuine pleasure in Cranach's art, and the latter, in his turn, soon employed it in the service of the Reformation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. l8.--LUCAS CRANACH. (From a Portrait by himself.)]

While occupied thus in delivering simple and practical sermons to his congregation in the town, he continued to publish written works of the same character and purport, in addition to his labours in the field of learned ecclesiastical controversy, thus showing the love with which he worked for them at large in this matter. These writings were little books, tracts, so-called sermons. It did not disturb him, he once said, to hear daily of certain people who despised his poverty because he only wrote little books and German sermons for the unlearned laymen. 'Would to G.o.d,' he said, 'I had all my life long and with all my power served a layman to his improvement; I should then be content to thank G.o.d, and would very willingly after that let all my little books perish. I leave it to others to judge whether writing large books and a great number of them const.i.tutes art and is useful to Christianity; I consider rather, even if I cared to write large books after their art, I might do that quicker, with G.o.d's help, than making a little sermon in my fashion. I have never compelled or entreated anyone to listen to me or read my sermons. I have given freely to the congregation of what G.o.d has given to me and I owe to them; whoever does not like His word, let him read and listen to others.'

In this spirit he composed, after the Leipzig disputation, a little consolatory tract for Christians, full of reflection and wisdom. He dedicated it to the Elector, an illness of whom had prompted him to write it. Even his most bigoted opponents could not withhold their approbation of the work. Luther's pupil and biographer Mathesius, thought there had never been such words of comfort written before in the German language. In a similar strain Luther wrote about preparation for dying, the contemplation of Christ's sufferings, and other matters of like kind. He explained to the people in a few pages the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. At the desire of the Elector, conveyed to him through Spalatin, and notwithstanding the difficulty he had in finding time for such a large work, he applied himself to a practical exposition of the Epistles and Gospels read in church, intended princ.i.p.ally for the use of preachers.

At the same time he made steady progress with his own Scriptural researches, which led him away more and more from the main articles of the purely traditional doctrines of the Church. And the light which dawned upon him in these studies he took pains to impart at once to his congregation. But it was no mere negative or hypercritical interest that led him on and induced him to write. In connection with the saving efficacy of faith, which he had gathered from the Bible, new truths, full of import, unfolded themselves before him. On the other hand, such dogmas of the Church as he found to have no warrant in Scripture, nor to harmonise with the Scriptural doctrine of salvation, frequently faded from his notice, and perished even before he was fully conscious of their hollowness.

The new knowledge had ripened with him before the old husk was thrown away.

Thus he now learnt and taught others to understand anew the meaning of the Christian sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The Church of the middle ages beheld with wonder in this sacrament the miracle of transubstantiation. The body of our Lord, moreover, here present as the object of adoration, was to serve above all as the bloodless repet.i.tion of the b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice for sin on Golgotha, to be offered to G.o.d for the good of Christendom and mankind. To offer that sacrifice was the highest act which the priesthood could boast of, as being thought worthy to perform by G.o.d. This whole mysterious, sacred transaction was clothed in the ma.s.s, for the eye and ear of the members of the congregation, with a number of ritualistic forms. In giving them, moreover, the consecrated elements in the sacrament, the priest alone partook of the cup.

Luther, on the contrary, found the whole meaning of that inst.i.tution of the departing Saviour, according to His own words, 'Take, eat, and drink,' in the blessed and joyful communion here prepared by Him for the congregation of receivers, each one of whom was verily to partake of it in faith. Here, as he taught in a sermon on the Sacrament in 1519, they were to celebrate and enjoy real communion; communion with the Saviour, who feeds them with His flesh and blood; communion with one another, that they, eating of one bread, should become one cake, one bread, one body united in love; communion in all the benefits purchased by their Saviour and Head; and communion also in all gifts of grace bestowed upon His people, in all sufferings to be endured, and in all virtues alive in their hearts.

Above all, he appealed to Christ's own words, that He had shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins. Here at His holy Supper, He wished to dispense this forgiveness, and, with it, eternal life to all His guests; He pledged it to them here by the gift of His own body. Luther, but only incidentally, remarked in this sermon, when speaking of the cup: 'I should be well pleased to see the Church decree in a General Council, that communion in _both kinds_ should be given to the laity as to the priests.' Even then he regarded as unfounded that idea of sacrifice at the ma.s.s which in his later writings he so strenuously denied and combated. At the same time he pointed out the sacrifice which Christendom, and indeed every Christian, must continually offer to G.o.d, namely, the sacrifice to G.o.d of himself and all that he possesses, offered with inward humility, prayer, and thankfulness. The question as to a change of the elements, which Melancthon had already denied, Luther pa.s.sed by as an unnecessary subtlety. Lastly, together with the sacrifice supposed to be offered by the priest, he dismissed also the notion of a peculiar priesthood; for with the real sacrifice offered by Christians, as he understood it, all became priests.

Instead of the difference theretofore existing between priests and laymen, he would recognise no difference among Christians but such as was conferred by the public ministration of G.o.d's word and sacrament.

Whilst discoursing in a sermon, in a similar manner, on the inner meaning of baptism, he pa.s.sed from the vow of baptism to the vow of chast.i.ty, so highly prized in the Catholic Church. He admits this vow, but represents the former one as so immeasurably higher and all-embracing, as to deprive the Church of her grounds for attaching such value to the latter.

He enlarged on moral and religious life in general in a long sermon 'On Good Works,' which he dedicated early in 1520 to Duke John, the brother of the Elector. In clear and earnest language he explained how faith itself, on which everything depended, was a matter of innermost moral life and conduct, nay, the very highest work conformable to G.o.d's will; and further, how that same faith cannot possibly remain merely pa.s.sive, but, on the contrary, the faithful Christian must himself become pleasing to G.o.d, on whose grace he relies, must love Him again, and fulfil His holy Will with energy and activity in all duties and relations of life. These duties he proceeds to explain according to the Ten Commandments. He will not, however, have the conscience further laden with duties imposed by the Church, for which no corresponding moral obligation exists. He turns then with earnest exhortation to rebuke certain common faults and crimes in the public life of his nation, the gluttony and drunkenness, the excessive luxury, the loose living, and the usury, which was then the subject of so much complaint. Against this last practice he preached a special sermon, in which, agreeably with the older teaching of the Church, he spoke of all interest taken for money as questionable, inasmuch as Jesus had exhorted only to lending without looking for a return. The creditor, at any rate, he said, should take his share of the risks to which his capital, in the hands of the debtor, was exposed from accident or misadventure.

The essence of the Church of Christ he placed in that inner communion of the faithful with one another and their heavenly Head, on which he dwelt with such emphasis in connection with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. For the stability and prosperity of this Church he considered no externals necessary beyond the preaching of G.o.d's Word and the administration of the Sacraments, as ordained by Christ,--no Romish Popedom, nor any other hierarchical arrangements. But in the same spirit of love and brotherly fellowship with which he embraced Hussites, as well as the Eastern Christians who were denounced as Schismatics, he still wished to hold fast to the visible community of the Church of Rome, declining to identify it with the corrupt Romish Curia. That love, he said, should make him a.s.sist and sympathise with the Church, even in her infirmities and faults.

He was anxious also to fulfil personally all the minor duties inc.u.mbent on him as a monk and a priest. And yet the higher obligations of his calling, that incessant activity in proclaiming the word, both by speech and writing, were of much greater importance in his eyes. He performed with diligence such duties as the regular repet.i.tion of prayers, singing, reading the _Horae_, and never dreamed of venturing to omit them. He relates afterwards, how wonderfully industrious he had been in this respect. Often, if he happened to neglect these duties during the week, he would make up for it in the course of the Sunday from early morning till the evening, going without his breakfast and dinner. In vain his friend Melancthon represented to him that, if the neglect were such a sin, so foolish a reparation would not atone for it.

Measures, however, were now taken by the Romish Church and its representatives, which, by attacking the word, as he preached it, drove him further into the battle.

It will be remembered that the Papal bull, directed against his theses on indulgences, had not actually mentioned him by name.

Contemptuously, therefore, as the Pope had spoken of him as an execrable heretic, he had never yet uttered a formal public judgment upon him. Two theological faculties, those of the universities of Cologne and Louvain, were the first to p.r.o.nounce an official condemnation of him and his writings. The latter were to be burnt, and their author compelled publicly to recant. This sentence, though p.r.o.nounced after the disputation at Leipzig, related only to a small collection of earlier writings. In a published reply he dismissed, not without scorn, these learned divines, who, in a spirit of vain self-exaltation and without the smallest grounds, had presumed to pa.s.s sentence on Christian verities. Their boasting, he said, was empty wind; their condemnation frightened him no more than the curse of a drunken woman.

The first official p.r.o.nouncement of a German bishop touched him more nearly. This was a decree, issued in January 1520 by John, Bishop of Meissen, from his residence at Stolpen. Herein, Luther's one statement about the cup, which the Church, as he said, would do well to restore to the laity, was picked out of his Sermon on the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The people were to be warned against the grievous errors and inconveniences which were bound to ensue from such a step; and the sermon was to be suppressed. Luther was now cla.s.sed as an open ally of the Hussites, whose very ground of contention was the cup. Duke George in alarm complained of him to the Elector Frederick. It was rumoured about him even that he had been born and educated among the Bohemians.

To this episcopal note, which he ridiculed in a pun, Luther published a short and pungent reply in Latin and German. He was particularly indignant that this occasion should have been seized to tax his sermon with false doctrine, since the wish he there expressed did not contain, as even his enemies must admit, anything contrary to any dogma of the Church. For his enemies, no doubt, this one point was of more practical importance than many deviations from orthodoxy with which they might have reproached him in his doctrine of salvation; for it concerned a jealously guarded privilege of their priestly office, and was connected with the 'Bohemian heresy.'

As for Huss, however, Luther now confessed without reserve the sympathy he shared with his evangelical teaching. He had learned to know him better since the Leipzig disputation. He now wrote to Spalatin: 'I have hitherto, unconsciously, taught everything that Huss taught, and so did John Staupitz, in short we are all Hussites, without knowing it. Paul and Augustine are also Hussites. I know not, for very terror, what to think as to G.o.d's fearful judgments among men, seeing that the most palpable evangelical truth known for more than a century, has been burnt and condemned, and n.o.body has ever ventured to say so.'

On the part of the Elector, Luther still continued to reap the benefit of that placid good-will which disregarded all attempts, either by friendly words or menaces, to set that prince against him.

Luther for this thanked him publicly, without meeting with any demurrer from the Elector, as well in a dedication of the first part of his new work on the Psalms, which he had sent to the press early in 1519, as in another prefixed to his tract on Christian comfort, already noticed. This last work he had been encouraged to write by Spalatin, the confidant of the sick prince whom it was intended to please. In the dedication prefixed to the Psalms, he expressed his joy at hearing how Frederick had declared in a conversation reported by Staupitz, that all sermons, made by man's wit and uttering man's opinions, were cold and powerless, and the Scriptures alone inspired with such marvellous power and majesty that one must needs say, 'There is something more there than mere Scribe and Pharisee; there is the finger of G.o.d;' and how, when Staupitz had concurred in the remark, the prince had taken his hand and said, 'Promise me that you will always think thus.' Luther also thanked Frederick for having, as all his subjects knew, taken more care of his safety than he had done himself. In his thoughtlessness, he himself had thrown the die, and had already prepared himself for the worst, and only hoped to be able to retire into some corner, when his prince had come forward as his champion.

At the same time the Elector remained constant in his efforts to check the impetuosity of Luther. We have noticed how he encouraged him, through Spalatin, to peaceful work in the service of Christian preaching. When the episcopal missive from Stolpen threatened to make the storm break out afresh, he sent, by Spalatin, an urgent exhortation to Luther to restrain his pen, and further advised him to send letters of explanation, in a conciliatory spirit, to Albert, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mayence, and the Bishop of Merseburg.

Luther wrote to both in a tone of perfect dignity. He begged them not to lend an ear to the complaints and calumniations which were being circulated against him, especially in reference to giving the cup to the laity, and to the Papal power, until the matter had been seriously examined. He spoke at the same time of malicious accusers, who on those points held secretly the same opinions as himself.

But from this contest with the Bishop of Meissen he refused to withdraw. To Spalatin he broke out again in February 1520, in terms more decided than any he had previously given vent to, and which led people to expect still sharper utterances. 'Do not suppose,' he said, 'that the cause of Christ is to be furthered on earth in sweet peace: the Word of G.o.d can never be set forth without danger and disquiet: it is a Word of infinite majesty, it works great things, and is wonderful among the great and the high; it slew, as the prophet says (Psalm lxxviii. 31), the wealthiest of them, and smote down the chosen ones of Israel. In this matter one must either renounce peace or deny the Word; the battle is the Lord's, who has not come to bring peace into the world.' Again he says: 'If you would think rightly of the Gospel, do not believe that its cause can be advanced without tumult, trouble, and uproar. You cannot make a pen out of a sword: the Word of G.o.d is a sword; it is war, overthrow, trouble, destruction, poison; it meets the children of Ephraim, as Amos says, like a bear on the road, or like a lioness in the wood.' Of himself he adds: 'I cannot deny that I am more violent than I ought to be; they know it, and therefore should not provoke the dog. How hard it is to moderate one's heat and one's pen you can learn for yourself. That is the reason why I was always unwilling to be forced to come forward in public; and the more unwilling I am, the more I am drawn into the contest; that this happens so is due to those scandalous libels which are heaped against me and the Word of G.o.d. So shameful are they that, even if my heat and my pen did not carry me away, a very heart of stone would be moved to seize a weapon, how much more myself, who am hot and whose pen is not entirely blunt.'

The two dignitaries of the Church answered not ungraciously. They merely expressed an opinion that he was too violent, and that his writings would have a questionable influence with the ma.s.s of the people. They refrained from giving judgment on the matter; a proof that, in the Catholic Church in Germany, the questions raised by Luther could not then have been considered of such importance as the upholders of the strict Papal system maintained and desired. Even Albert, the Cardinal, Archbishop, and Primate of the German Church, ventured to speak of the whole question about the Divine or merely human right of the Papacy as an insignificant affair, which had but little to do with real Christianity, and therefore should never have become the occasion of such pa.s.sionate dispute.

From Rome was now awaited the supreme judicial decision as to Luther and his cause. The Pope had already in 1518 indicated clearly enough to Frederick the Wise in what sense he intended to give this decision. But it kept on being delayed, because, on the one hand, it still appeared necessary to act with caution and consideration, and, on the other, because Roman arrogance continued to underestimate the danger of the German movement. Meanwhile Eck, by a report of his disputation and by letters had stirred the fire at Rome. The theologians of Cologne and Louvain worked in the same direction, and called on the whole Dominican Order to a.s.sist them with their influence. The Papal pretensions which Luther had disputed were now for the first time proclaimed in all their fulness of audacity and exaggeration. Luther's old opponent Prierias, in a new pamphlet, extended them to the temporal as well as the spiritual sovereignty of the world; the Pope, he said, was head of the Universe. Eck now devoted an entire treatise to justifying the Divine right of the Papal primacy, resting his proofs boldly, and without any attempt at critical inquiry, on spurious old doc.u.ments. With this book he hastened in February 1520 to Rome, in order personally to push forward and a.s.sist in publishing the bull of excommunication which was to demolish his enemy and extinguish the flame he had kindled.

But Luther's work, in proportion as it advanced and became bolder, had stirred already the minds of the people both wider and deeper.

Opponents of Rome who had risen up against her in other quarters, on other grounds, and with other weapons, now ranged themselves upon his side. Among all alike the ardour of battle grew the more powerful and violent, the more it was attempted to smother them with edicts of arbitrary power.

CHAPTER VI.

ALLIANCE WITH THE HUMANISTS AND THE n.o.bILITY.

We have already seen how astonished Milt.i.tz was at the sympathy with Luther which he found among all cla.s.ses of the German people. The growth of this sympathy is shown in particular by the increasing number of printed editions of his writings; the perfect freedom then enjoyed by the press contributed largely to their wide circulation.

In 1520 alone there were more than a hundred editions of Luther's works in German. Though the ordinary book-trade as now carried on was then unknown, there were a mult.i.tude of colporteurs actively employed in going with books from house to house, some of them merely in the interests of their trade, others also as emissaries of those who were friends of the cause, thus intended to be furthered.

As reading was a difficult matter to the ma.s.ses, and even to many of the higher cla.s.ses, there were travelling students who went about to different places, and proffered their a.s.sistance. The earnest, deeply instructive contents of Luther's small popular tracts met the needs of both the educated and uneducated cla.s.ses, in a manner never done by any other religious writings of that time, and served to stimulate their appet.i.te for more. And to this was added the strong impression produced directly on their minds by the elementary exposition of his doctrine, irreconcilable with all notions of the Church system hitherto prevailing, and stigmatised by his enemies as poison. All, in short, that this condemned heretic wrote, became dear to the hearts of the people.

Luther found now, moreover, most valuable allies in the leading champions of that Humanistic movement, the importance of which, as regards the culture of the priesthood and the religious and ecclesiastical development of that time, we had occasion to notice during Luther's residence at the university of Erfurt. That Humanism, more than anything else, represented the general aspiration of the age to attain a higher standard of learning and culture. The alliance between Luther and the Humanists inaugurated and symbolised the union between this culture and the Evangelical Reformation.

Luther, even before entering the convent, had formed a friendship with at least some of the young 'poets,' or enthusiasts of this new learning.

Later on, when, after the inward struggles and heart-searchings of those gloomy years of monastic experience, the light dawned upon him of his Scriptural doctrine of salvation, we find him expressing his sympathy and reverence for the two leading spirits of the movement, Reuchlin and Erasmus; and this notwithstanding the fact that he never approved the method of defence adopted by the supporters of the former, nor could ever conceal his dislike of the att.i.tude taken up by Erasmus in regard to theology and religion.

Meanwhile, such Humanists as wished to enjoy the utmost possible freedom for their own learned pursuits flocked around Reuchlin against his literary enemies, and cared very little about the authorities of the Church. The bold monk and his party excited neither their interest nor their concern. Many of them thought of him, no doubt, when he was engaged in the heat of the contest about indulgences, as did Ulrich von Hutten, who wrote to a friend: 'A quarrel has broken out at Wittenberg between two hot-headed monks, who are screaming and shouting against each other. It is to be hoped that they will eat one another up.' To such men the theological questions at issue seemed not worth consideration. At the same time they took care to pay all necessary respect to the princes of the Church, who had shown favour to them personally and to their learning, and did homage to them, notwithstanding much that must have shocked them in their conduct as ecclesiastics. Thus Hutten did not scruple to enter the service of the same Archbishop Albert who had opened the great traffic in indulgences in Germany, but who was also a patron of literature and art, and was only too glad to be recognised publicly by an Erasmus. We hear nothing of any remonstrances made to him by Erasmus himself. In the same spirit that dictated the above remark of Hutten, Mosella.n.u.s, who opened with a speech the disputation at Leipzig, wrote to Erasmus during the preparations for that event. There will be a rare battle, he said, and a b.l.o.o.d.y one, coming off between two Scholastics; ten such men as Democritus would find enough to laugh over till they were tired. Moreover, Luther's fundamental conception of religion, with his doctrine of man's sinfulness and need of salvation, so far from corresponding, was in direct antagonism with that Humanistic view of life which seemed to have originated from the devotion to cla.s.sical antiquity, and to revive the proud, self-satisfied, independent spirit of heathendom. Even in an Erasmus Luther had thought he perceived an inability to appreciate his new doctrine.

Melancthon's arrival at Wittenberg was, in this respect, an event of the first importance. This highly-gifted young man, who had united in his person all the learning and culture of his time, whose mind had unfolded in such beauty and richness, and whose personal urbanity had so endeared him to men of culture wherever he went, now found his true happiness in that gospel and in that path of grace which Luther had been the first to make known. And whilst offering the right hand of fellowship to Luther, he continued working with energy in his own particular sphere, kept up his intimacy with his fellow-labourers therein, and won their respect and admiration.

Humanists at a distance, meanwhile, must have noticed the fact, that the most violent attacks against Luther proceeded from those very quarters, as for instance, from Hoogstraten, and afterwards from the theological faculty at Cologne, where Reuchlin had been the most bitterly persecuted. At length the actual details of the disputation between Luther and Eck opened men's eyes to the magnitude of the contest there waged for the highest interests of Christian life and true Christian knowledge, and to the greatness of the man who had ventured single-handed to wage it.

At Erfurt Luther had found already in the spring of 1518, on his return from the meeting of his Order at Heidelberg, in pleasing contrast to the displeasure he had aroused among his old teachers there, a spirit prevailing among the students of the university, which gave him hope that true theology would pa.s.s from the old to the young, just as once Christianity, rejected by the Jews, pa.s.sed from them to the heathen. Those well-wishers and advisers who took his part at Augsburg, when he had to go thither to meet Caietan, were friends of Humanistic learning. Among the earliest of those, outside Wittenberg, who united that learning with the new tendency of religious teaching, we find some prominent citizens of the flourishing town of Nuremberg, where, as we have seen, Luther's old friend Link was also actively engaged. Already before the contest about indulgences broke out, the learned jurist Scheuerl of that place had made friends with Luther, whom the next year he speaks of as the most celebrated man in Germany. The most important of the Humanists there, Willibald Pirkheimer, a patrician of high esteem and an influential counsellor, and who had once held local military command, corresponded with Luther, and after learning from him the progress of his views and studies concerning the Papal power, made his Leipzig opponent the object of a bitter anonymous satire, 'The Polished Corner' (Eck). Another learned Nuremberger, the Secretary of the Senate, Lazarus Spengler, was on terms of close Christian fellowship with Luther: he published in 1519 a 'Defence and Christian Answer,' which contained a powerful and worthy vindication of Luther's popular tracts. Albert Durer also, the famous painter, took a deep interest in Luther's evangelical doctrine, and revered him as a man inspired by the Holy Ghost. Among the number of theologians who ranked next to Erasmus, the well-known John Oecolampadius, then a preacher at Augsburg, and almost of the same age as Luther, came forward in his support, towards the end of 1519, with a pamphlet directed against Eck. Erasmus himself in 1518, at least in a private letter to Luther's friend Lange at Erfurt, of which the latter we may be sure did not leave Luther in ignorance, declared that Luther's theses were bound to commend themselves to all good men, almost without exception; that the present Papal domination was a plague to Christendom; the only question was whether tearing open the wound would do any good, and whether it was not conceivable that the matter could be carried through without an actual rupture.

Luther, on his part, approached Reuchlin and Erasmus by letter. To the former he wrote, at the urgent entreaty of Melancthon, in December 1518, to the latter in the following March. Both letters are couched in the refined language befitting these learned men, and particularly Erasmus, and contain warm expressions of respect and deference, though in a tone of perfect dignity, and free from the hyperboles to which Erasmus was usually treated by his common admirers. At the same time Luther was careful indeed to conceal the other and less favourable side of his estimate of Erasmus, which he had already formed in his own mind and expressed to his friends. We can see how bent he was, notwithstanding, upon a closer intimacy with that distinguished man.

Reuchlin, then an old man, would have nothing to do with Luther and the questions he had raised. He even sought to alienate his nephew Melancthon from him, by bidding him abstain from so perilous an enterprise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. l9.--W. PIRKHEIMER. (From a Portrait by Albert Durer.)]

Erasmus replied with characteristic evasion. He had not yet read Luther's writings, but he advised everyone to read them before crying them down to the people. He himself believed that more was to be gained by quietness and moderation than by violence, and he felt bound to warn him in the spirit of Christ against all intemperate and pa.s.sionate language; but he did not wish to admonish Luther what to do, but only to continue steadfastly what he was doing already.

The chief thought to which he gives expression is the earnest hope that the movement kindled by Luther's writings would not give occasion to opponents to accuse and suppress the 'n.o.ble arts and letters.' A regard for these, which indeed were the object of his own high calling, was always of paramount importance in his eyes.

Not content with attacking by means of ridicule the abuses in the Church, Erasmus took a genuine interest in the improvement of its general condition, and in the elevation and refinement of moral and religious life, as well as of theological science; and the high esteem he enjoyed made him an influential man among even the superior clergy and the princes of the Church. But from the first he recognised, as he says in his letter to Lange, and possibly better than Luther himself, the difficulties and dangers of attacking the Church system on the points selected by Luther. And when Luther boldly antic.i.p.ated the disturbances which the Word must cause in the world, and dwelt on Christ's saying that He had come to bring a sword, Erasmus shrank back in terror at the thought of tumult and destruction. Conformably with the whole bent of his natural disposition and character, he adhered anxiously to the peaceful course of his work and the pursuit of his intellectual pleasures.

Questions involving deep principles, such as those of the Divine right of the Papacy, the absolute character of Church authority, or the freedom of Christian judgment, as founded on the Bible, he regarded from aloof; notwithstanding that silence or concealment towards either party, when once these principles were publicly put in question, was bound to be construed as a denial of the truth.

We shall see how this same standpoint, from which this learned man still retained his inward sympathy with Church matters, dictated further his att.i.tude towards Luther and the Reformation. For the present, Luther had to thank the good opinion of Erasmus, cautiously expressed though it was, for a great advancement of his cause. It was valuable to Luther in regard to those who had no personal knowledge of him, as giving them conclusive proof that his character and conduct were irreproachable. His influence is apparent in the answer of the Archbishop Albert to Luther, in its tone of gracious reticence, and its remarks about needless contention. Erasmus had written some time before to the Archbishop, contrasting the excesses charged against Luther with those of the Papal party, and denouncing the corruptions of the Church, and particularly the lack of preachers of the gospel. Much to the annoyance of Erasmus, this letter was published, and it worked more in Luther's favour than he wished.