Chapter XXII: Luther and Lying (2)

“Everywhere there prevailed the horrid, pestilential teaching of the Pope and the sophists, viz. that a man must be uncertain of God’s grace towards himself (‘_incertum debere esse de gratia Dei erga se_’).”[323] By this doctrine and by their holiness-by-works Pope and monks “had driven all the world headlong into hell” for “well-nigh four hundred years.”[324] Of course, “for a man to be pious, or to become so by God’s Grace, was heresy” to them; “their works were of greater value, did and wrought more than God’s Grace,”[325] and with all this “they do no single work which might profit their neighbour in body, goods, honour or soul.”[326]

A. Kalthoff[327] remarks of similar distortions of which Luther was guilty: “Hardly anyone in the whole of history was so little able to bear contradiction as Luther; it was out of the question to discuss with him any opinion from another point of view; he preferred to contradict himself or to assert what was absolutely monstrous, rather than allow his opponent even a semblance of being in the right.”--The misrepresentation of Catholic doctrine which became a tradition among Lutheran polemics was in great part due to Luther.--With equal skill and moderation Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick, in his “Fifty Reasons” for returning to the Catholic Church,[328] protests against this perversion of Catholic doctrine by Lutheran writers. He had observed that arguments were adduced by the Lutherans to prove truths which the Church does not deny at all, whilst the real points at issue were barely touched upon. “For instance, they bring forward a heap of texts to prove that God alone is to be adored, though Catholics never question it, and they teach that it is a sin of idolatry to pay divine worship to any creature.” “They extol the merits of Christ and the greatness of His satisfaction for our sins. But what for? Catholics teach the same, viz. that the merits of Christ are infinite and that His satisfaction suffices to blot out all the sins of the world, and thus they, too, hold the Bible doctrine of the appropriation of Christ’s merits by means of their own good works (1 Peter i. 10).”

Two things especially were made the butt of Luther’s extravagant and untrue charges and insinuations, viz. the Mass and the religious life. In his much read Table-Talk the chapter on the Mass is full of misrepresentations such as can be explained only by the animus of the speaker.[329] Of religious he can relate the most incredible tales. Thus: “On the approach of death most of them cried in utter despair: Wretched man that I am; I have not kept my Rule and whither shall I flee from the anger of the Judge? Alas, that I was not a sow-herd, or the meanest creature on earth!”[330] On account of the moral corruption of the Religious Orders, he declares it would be right, “were it only feasible, to destroy both Papacy and monasteries at one blow!”[331] He is fond of jesting at the expense of the nuns; thus he makes a vulgar allusion to their supposed practice of taking an image of the Crucified to bed with them, as though it were their bridegroom. He roundly charges them all with arrogance: “The nuns are particularly reprehensible on account of their pride; for they boast: Christ is our bridegroom and we are His brides and other women are nothing.”[332]

It is putting the matter rather too mildly when a Protestant historian, referring to the countless assertions of this nature, remarks, “that, in view of his habits and temper, some of Luther’s highly flavoured statements call for the use of the blue pencil if they are to be accorded historical value.”[333]

Lastly, we must point to another psychological, or, more accurately, pathological, element which may avail to explain falsehoods so glaring concerning the Church of former times. Experience teaches, that sometimes a man soaked in prejudice will calumniate or otherwise assail a foe, at first from an evil motive and with deliberate injustice, and then, become gradually persuaded, thanks to the habit thus formed, of the truth of his calumnies and of the justice of his proceedings. Instances of such a thing are not seldom met with in history, especially among those engaged in mighty conflicts in the arena of the world. Injustice and falsehood, not indeed entirely, but with regard to the matter in hand, are travestied, become matters of indifference, or are even transformed in their eyes into justice and truth.

In Luther’s case the phenomenon in question assumes a pathological guise. We cannot but perceive in him a kind of self-suggestion by which he imposed upon himself. Constituted as he was, such suggestion was possible, nay probable, and was furthermore abetted by his nervous excitement, the result of his never-ceasing struggle.[334]

It is in part to his power of suggestion that must also be attributed his success in making his disciples and followers accept even his most extravagant views and become in their turn missioners of the same.

_The New Theology of Lying._

Another explanation, this time a theological one, of Luther’s disregard for the laws of truth is to be found in the theory he set up of the permissibility of lies.

Previously, even in 1517, he, like all theologians, had regarded every kind of lie as forbidden. Theologians of earlier times, when dealing with this subject, usually agreed with Augustine and Peter Lombard, the “_Magister Sententiarum_” and likewise with Gratian, that all lies, even lies of excuse, are forbidden. After the commencement of his public controversy, however, strange as it may appear, Luther gradually came to assert in so many words that lies of excuse, of convenience, or of necessity were not reprehensible, but often good and to be counselled. How far this view concerning the lawfulness of lying might be carried, remained, however, a question to be decided by each one individually.

Formerly he had rightly declared: A lie is “contrary to man’s nature and the greatest enemy of human society”; hence no greater insult could be offered than to call a man a liar. To this he always adhered. But besides, following St. Augustine, he had distinguished between lies of jest and of necessity and lies of detraction. Not merely the latter, so he declared, were unlawful, but, as Augustine taught, even lies of necessity or excuse--by which he understands lies told for our own or others’ advantage, but without injury to anyone. “Yet a lie of necessity,” he said at that time, “is not a mortal sin,” especially when told in sudden excitement “and without actual deliberation.” This is his language in January, 1517,[335] in his Sermons on the Ten Commandments, when explaining the eighth. Again, in his controversy with the Zwinglians on the Sacrament (1528), he incidentally shows his attitude by the remark, that, “when anyone has been publicly convicted of falsehood in one particular we are thereby sufficiently warned by God not to believe him at all.”[336] In 1538, he says of the Pope and the Papists, that, on account of their lies the words of Chrysippus applied to them: “If you are a liar you lie even in speaking the truth.”[337]

Meanwhile, however, his peculiar reading of the Old Testament, and possibly no less the urgent demands of his controversy, had exerted an unfortunate influence on his opinion concerning lies of convenience or necessity.

It seems to him that in certain Old-Testament instances of such lies those who employed them were not to blame. Abraham’s lie in denying that Sarah was his wife, the lie of the Egyptian midwives about the Jewish children, Michol’s lie told to save David, appear to Luther justifiable, useful and wholesome. On Oct. 2, 1524, in his Sermons on Exodus, as it would seem for the first time, he defended his new theory. Lies were only real lies “when told for the purpose of injuring our neighbour”; but, “if I tell a lie, not in order to injure anyone but for his profit and advantage and in order to promote his best interests, this is a lie of service”; such was the lie told by the Egyptian midwives and by Abraham; such lies fall “under the grace of Heaven, i.e. came under the forgiveness of sins”; such falsehoods “are not really lies.”[338]

In his lectures on Genesis (1536-45) the same system has been further elaborated: “As a matter of fact there is only one kind of lie, that which injures our neighbour in his soul, goods or reputation.” “The lie of service is wrongly termed a lie, for it rather denotes virtue, viz. prudence used for the purpose of defeating the devil’s malice and in order to serve our neighbour’s life and honour. Hence it may be called Christian and brotherly charity, or to use Paul’s words: Zeal for godliness.”[339] Thus Abraham “told no lie” in Egypt (Gen. xii. 11 ff.); what he told was “a lie of service, a praiseworthy act of prudence.”[340]

According to his Latin Table-Talk not only Abraham’s lie, but also Michol’s was a “good, useful lie and a work of charity.”[341] A lie for the advantage of another is, so he says, an act “by means of which we assist our neighbour.”

“The monks,” says Luther, “insist that the truth should be told under all circumstances.”[342]--Such certainly was the teaching of St. Thomas of Aquin, whose opinion on the subject then held universal sway, and who rightly insists that a lie is never under any circumstances lawful.[343] St. Augustine likewise shared this monkish opinion, as Luther himself had formerly pointed out. Long before Aquinas’s time this Doctor of the Church, whom Luther was later on deliberately to oppose,[344] had brought his view--the only reliable one, viz. that all untruth is wrong--into general recognition, thanks to his arguments and to the weight of his authority. Pope Alexander III, in a letter to the Archbishop of Palermo, declared that even a lie told to save another’s life was unlawful; this statement was incorporated in the official Decretals--a proof of the respect with which the mediæval Church clung to the truth.[345]

Some few writers of antiquity had, it is true, defended the lawfulness of lies of necessity or convenience. For instance, Origen, possibly under the influence of pagan philosophy, also Hilary and Cassian. Eventually their opinion disappeared almost completely.

It was reserved for Luther to revive the wrong view concerning the lawfulness of such lies, and to a certain extent to impose it on his followers. Theologically this spelt retrogression and a lowering of the standard of morality hitherto upheld. “Luther here forsook his beloved Augustine,” says Stäudlin, a Protestant, “and declared certain lies to be right and allowable. This opinion, though not universally accepted in the Evangelical Church, became nevertheless a dominant one.”[346]

It must be specially noted that Luther does not justify lies of convenience, merely when told in the interests of our neighbour, but also when made use of for our own advantage when such is well pleasing in God’s sight. This he states explicitly when speaking of Isaac, who denied his marriage with Rebecca so as to save his life: “This is no sin, but a serviceable lie by which he escaped being put to death by those with whom he was staying; for this would have happened had he said Rebecca was his wife.”[347] And not only the lawful motive of personal advantage justifies, according to him, such untruths as do not injure others, but much more the love of God or of our neighbour, i.e. regard for God’s honour; the latter motive it was, according to him, which influenced Abraham, when he gave out that Sarah was his sister. Abraham had to co-operate in accomplishing the great promise made by God to him and his progeny; hence he had to preserve his life, “in order that he might honour and glorify God thereby, and not give the lie to God’s promises.” Many Catholic interpreters of the Bible have sought to find expedients whereby, without justifying his lie, they might yet exonerate the great Patriarch of any fault. Luther, on the contrary, following his own arbitrary interpretation of the Bible, approves, nay, even glories in the fault. “If,” he says, “the text be taken thus [according to his interpretation] no one can be scandalised at it; for what is done for God’s honour, for the glory and furtherance of His Word, that is right and well done and deserving of all praise.”[348]

On such principles as these, what was there that Luther could not justify in his polemics with the older Church?

In his eyes everything he undertook was done for “God’s glory.” “For the sake of the Christian Church,” he was ready, to tell “a downright lie” (above, p. 51) in the Hessian affair. “Against the deception and depravity of the Papal Antichrist,” he regarded everything “as permissible” for the salvation of souls (above, p. 95); moreover, was not the war he was waging part of his divine mission? The public welfare and the exalted interests of his work might therefore at any time call for a violation of the truth. Was he to be deterred, perhaps, by the injury his opponents might thereby suffer? By no means. They suffered no real injury; on the contrary, it all redounded to their spiritual good, for by ending the reign of prejudice and error their souls would be saved from imminent peril and the way paved for the accomplishment of the ancient promises “to the glory and furtherance of the Word.”

We do not mean to say that Luther actually formed his conscience thus in any particular instance. Of this we cannot judge and it would be too much to expect from him any statement on the subject. But the danger of his doing so was sufficiently proximate.

The above may possibly throw a new light on his famous words: “We consider everything allowable against the deception and depravity of the Papal Antichrist.”[349]

_Luther’s Influence on His Circle._

Our remarks on Luther and lying would be incomplete were we not to refer to the influence his example and theory exercised on his surroundings and on those who assisted him in establishing the new Church system.

Melanchthon not only incurred, and justly too, the reproach of frequently playing the dishonest diplomatist, particularly at the Diet of Augsburg,[350] but even advocated in his doctrinal works the Lutheran view that lying is in many cases lawful.

“The lie of convenience,” he says, “is praiseworthy, it is a good useful lie and proceeds from charity because one desires thereby to help one’s neighbour.” Hence, we may infer, where the object was to bring the Evangel home to a man, a lie was all the less reprehensible. Melanchthon appeals to Abraham’s statement that Sarah was his sister (Gen. xii. and xx.), and to the artifice of Eliseus (4 Kings vi. 19), but overlooks the fact that these instances prove nothing in his favour since there no “neighbour was helped,” but, on the contrary, untruth was dictated purely by self-love.[351]

During the negotiations carried on between England, Hesse and Saxony in view of an ecclesiastical understanding, Melanchthon, at the instance of the Elector of Saxony, drew up for him and the Landgrave, a document to be sent to Henry VIII of England, giving him information concerning the Anabaptist movement. His treatment of the matter has already been referred to (vol. iii., p. 374), but it now calls for more detailed consideration.

In this writing Melanchthon, to serve the interests of the new Evangel, had the courage to deny that the movement had made its appearance in those parts of Germany “where the pure Gospel is proclaimed,” but was only to be met with “where the people are not preserved from such errors by sound doctrine,” viz. “in Frisia and Westphalia.”[352] The fact is that the Anabaptists were so numerous in the Saxon Electorate that we constantly hear of prosecutions being instituted against them. P. Wappler, for instance, quotes an official minute from the Weimar archives, actually dated in 1536, which states, that the Elector “caused many Anabaptists to be punished and put to death by drowning and the sword, and to suffer long terms of imprisonment.”[353] Shortly before Melanchthon wrote the above, two Anabaptists had been executed in the Saxon Electorate. Beyond all doubt these facts were known to Melanchthon. The Landgrave of Hesse refused to allow the letter to be despatched. Feige, his Chancellor, pointed out the untruth of the statement, “that these errors only prevailed in places where the pure doctrine was lacking”; on the contrary, the Anabaptist error was unfortunately to be found throughout Germany, and even more under the Evangel than amongst the Papists.[354] An amended version of the letter, dated Sep. 23, 1536, was eventually sent to the King. Wappler, who relates all this fully, says: “Melanchthon was obviously influenced by his wish to warn the King of the ‘plague’ of the Anabaptist heresy and to predispose him for the ‘pure doctrine of the Evangel.’” “What he said was glaringly at variance with the actual facts.”[355]

Like Luther, Martin Bucer, too, urged the Landgrave to tell a deliberate lie and openly deny his bigamy. Though at first unwilling, he had undertaken to advocate the Landgrave’s bigamy with Luther and had defended it personally (above, p. 28). In spite of this, however, when complications arose on its becoming public, he declared in a letter of 1541 to the preachers of Memmingen, which so far has received little attention, that the Landgrave’s wrong step, some rumours of which had reached his ears, should it prove to be true, could not be laid to his charge or to that of the Wittenbergers. “I declare before God (‘_coram Deo affirmo_’) that no one has given the Prince such advice, neither I, nor Luther, nor Philip, nor, so far as I know, any Hessian preacher, nor has anyone taught that Christians may keep concubines as well as their wives, or declared himself ready to defend such a step.”[356] And, again calling God to witness (“_hæc ego ut coram Deo scripta_”), he declares that he had never written or signed anything in defence of the bigamy.[357] In the following year he appeared before the magistrates of Strasburg and, in the presence of two colleagues, “took God to witness concerning the suspicion of having advised the Landgrave the other marriage,” “that the latter had consulted neither him nor any preacher concerning the matter”; he and Capito had “throughout been opposed to it” (the bigamy), “although his help had been sought for in such matters by honourable and highly placed persons.”[358] The reference here is to Henry VIII of England, to whom, however, he had never expressed his disapproval of bigamy; in fact he, like Capito and the two Wittenbergers (above, p. 4), had declared his preference for Henry’s taking an extra wife rather than divorcing his first.

Bucer (who had so strongly inveighed against Luther’s lies, above, p. 99), where it was a question of a Catholic opponent like the Augustinian Johann Hoffmeister, had himself recourse to notorious calumnies concerning this man, whom even Protestant historians now allow to have been of blameless life and the “greatest enemy of immorality.”[359] He accused him of “dancing with nuns,” of “wallowing in vice,” and of being “an utterly abandoned, infamous and dissolute knave,” all of them groundless charges at very most based upon mere hearsay.[360]--This same Bucer, who accused the Catholic Princes of being double-tongued and pursuing dubious policies, was himself notorious amongst his own party for his wiliness, deceit and cunning.

Johann Bugenhagen, the Pastor of Wittenberg, when called upon to acknowledge his share in a certain questionable memorandum of a semi-political character also laid himself open to the charge of being wanting in truthfulness (vol. iii., p. 74 f.).

P. Kalkoff has recently made clear some of Wolfgang Capito’s double-dealings and his dishonest behaviour, though he hesitates to condemn him for them. Capito had worked in Luther’s interests at the Court of Archbishop Albert of Mayence, and there, with the Archbishop’s help, “rendered incalculable services to the Evangelical cause.” In extenuation of his behaviour Kalkoff says: “In no way was it more immoral than the intrigues” of the Elector Frederick. On the strength of the material he has collected J. Greving rightly describes Capito as a “thoroughbred hypocrite and schemer.”[361] The dealings of this “eminent diplomatist,” as Greving also terms him, remind us only too often of Luther’s own dealings with highly placed ecclesiastics and seculars during the first period of his apostasy. If, in those early days, Luther’s theory had already won many friends and imitators, in the thick of the fight it made even more converts amongst the new preachers, men ready to make full use of the alluring principle, that, against the depravity of the Papacy everything is licit.

From vituperation to the violation of truth there was but a step amidst the passion which prevailed. How Luther’s abuse--ostensibly all for the love of his neighbour--infected his pupils is plain from a letter in the newly published correspondence of the Brothers Blaurer. This letter, written from Wittenberg on Oct. 8, 1522, by Thomas Blaurer, to Ulrich Zasius, contains the following: “Not even from the most filthy and shameful vituperation [of the hateful Papacy] shall we shrink, until we see it everywhere despised and abhorred.” What had to be done was to vindicate the doctrine that, “Christ is our merit and our satisfaction.”[362] Luther, he says, poured forth abuse (“_convicia_”), but only to God’s glory, and for the “salvation and encouragement of the little ones.”[363]

4. Some Leading Slanders on the Mediæval Church Historically Considered

“In Luther’s view the Middle Ages, whose history was fashioned by the Popes, was a period of darkest night.... This view of the Middle Ages, particularly of the chief factor in mediæval life, viz. the Church in which it found its highest expression, is one-sided and distorted.” Such is the opinion of a modern Protestant historian. He is sorry that false ideas of the mediæval Church and theology “have been sheltered so long under the ægis of the reformer’s name.”[364]--“It will not do,” a lay Protestant historian, as early as 1874, had told the theologians of his faith, speaking of Köstlin’s work “Luthers Theologie,” “to ignore the contemporary Catholic literature when considering Luther and the writings of the reformers.... It is indispensable that the condition of theology from about 1490 to 1510 should be carefully examined. We must at all costs rid ourselves of the caricatures we meet with in the writings of the reformers, and of the misunderstandings to which they gave rise, and learn from their own writings what the theologians of that time actually thought and taught.” “Paradoxical as it may sound, it is just the theological side of the history of the Reformation which, at the present day, is least known.”[365]

During the last fifty years German scholars have devoted themselves with zeal and enthusiasm to the external and social aspect of the Middle Ages. That great undertaking, the “_Monumenta Germaniæ historica_,” its periodical the “Archiv,” and a number of others dealing largely with mediæval history brought Protestants to a juster and more objective appreciation of the past. Yet the theological, and even in some respects the ecclesiastical, side has been too much neglected, chiefly because so many Protestant theologians were scrupulous about submitting the subject to a new and unprejudiced study. Hence the astonishment of so many when Johannes Janssen, with his “History of the German People,” and, to pass over others, Heinrich Denifle with his work on Luther entered the field and demonstrated how incorrect had been the views prevalent since Luther’s time concerning the doctrine and the ecclesiastical life of his age. Astonishment in many soon made way for indignation; in Denifle’s case, particularly, annoyance was caused by a certain attitude adopted by this author which led some to reject in their entirety the theologico-historical consequences at which he arrived, whilst even Janssen was charged with being biassed. Other Protestants, however, have learned something from the Catholic works which have since made their appearance in greater numbers, have acknowledged that the ideas hitherto in vogue were behind the times and have invited scholars to undertake a more exact study of the materials.

“The later Middle Ages,” says W. Friedensburg, speaking of the prevailing Protestant view, “seemed only to serve as a foil for the history of the Reformation, of which the glowing colours stood out all the more clearly against the dark background.” “As late as a few years ago the history of the close of the Middle Ages was almost a ‘_terra incognita_.’” Only through Janssen, Friedensburg continues, “were we led to study more carefully the later Middle Ages” and to discover, amongst other things, that the “majority of the people [_sic_] had not really been so ignorant of the truth of Christianity,” that “the Church had not yet lost her power over people’s minds,” that “towards the end of the Middle Ages the people had already been growing familiar with the Bible,” and that “sermons in the vulgar tongue had not been neglected to the extent that has been frequently assumed.” This author, like H. Böhmer, characterises it as erroneous “to suppose that Luther was the first to revive regard for Paul and to restore Paulinism” or “to insist upon the reform of godliness on the model of the theology of Christ.” Coming to Denifle, he says, that the latter “on account of his learning was without a doubt qualified as scarcely any other scholar of our time for the task he undertook. When he published his ‘Luther’ he could look back on many years of solid and fruitful labour in the field of mediæval Scholasticism and Mysticism.” From Denifle’s work it is clear that Luther was “but little conversant with mediæval Scholasticism, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas.”[366]

“Denifle is right,” wrote Gustav Kawerau in an important Protestant theological periodical, “and touches a weak spot in Luther research when he reproaches us with not being sufficiently acquainted with mediæval theology.” An “examination of the Catholic surroundings in which Luther moved” is, so Kawerau insists, essential, and Protestants must therefore apply themselves to “the examination of that theology which influenced Luther.”[367]

What is, however, imperative is that this theology be, if possible, examined without Luther’s help, i.e. without, as usual, paying such exaggerated regard to his own statements as to what influenced him.

Luther, moreover, does not always speak _against_ the Middle Ages; on occasion he can employ its language himself, particularly when he thinks he can quote, in his own interests, utterances from that time. What W. Köhler says of a number of such instances holds good here: “Luther fancied he recognised himself in the Middle Ages, that is why his historical judgment is so often false.” In point of fact, as the same writer remarks, “Luther’s idea of history came from his own interior experience; this occupies the first place throughout.”[368] If for “interior experience” we substitute “subjective bias” the statement will be even more correct.

In returning here to some of Luther’s legends mentioned above (p. 92 f.) concerning the Catholic past and the religious views then prevailing, our object is merely to show by a few striking examples how wrong Luther was in charging the Middle Ages with errors in theology and morals.

One of his most frequently repeated accusations was, that the Church before his day had merely taught a hollow “holiness by works”; all exhortations to piety uttered by preachers and writers insisted solely on outward good works; of the need of cultivating an inward religious spirit, interior virtues or true righteousness of heart no one had any conception.

Against this we may set a few Catholic statements made during the years shortly before Luther’s appearance.

Gabriel Biel, the “standard theologian” of his time, whose works Luther himself had studied during his theological course, in one of his sermons distinctly advocates the Church’s doctrine against any external holiness-by-works. Commenting on the Gospel account of the hypocrisy and externalism of the Pharisees and their semblance of holiness, he pauses at the passage: “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt. v. 20). “Hence, if we desire to be saved,” he says, “our righteousness must not merely be shown in outward works but must reside in the heart; for without the inward spirit, outward works are neither virtuous nor praiseworthy, though the spirit may be so without outward works.” After proving this he again insists: “Thus true service of God does not consist in externals; on the contrary it is on the inward, pious acts of the will that everything depends, and this presupposes a right judgment and the recognition of the spirit. Hence in the practice of good works we must expend greater care on the interior direction of the will.” The learned preacher goes on fervently to exhort his hearers to amend their lives, to be humble, to trust in Christ and to lead lives of real, inward piety.[369]

Another preacher and theologian with whom Luther was well acquainted was Andreas Proles († 1503), the founder of the German Augustinian Congregation to which Luther had once belonged. In the sermons published by Petrus Sylvius, Proles insists upon the good intention and interior disposition by which works are sanctified. They are “smothered,” so he tells his hearers, “if done not out of love for God but with evil intent, for instance, for the sake of praise, or in order to deceive, or again, if done in sin or for any bad purpose.” “Hence ... in the practice of all his works a man must diligently strive after Divine justice, after a true faith with love of God and of his neighbour, after innocence and humility of heart, with a good purpose and intention, since every good work, however insignificant, even a drink of cold water given to the meanest creature for God’s sake, is deserving of reward in eternity.... Without charity neither faith nor good works are profitable unto salvation.”[370]

At about that same time the so-called “holiness-by-works” was also condemned by the learned Franciscan theologian, Stephen Brulefer. “Merit,” so he emphasises, “depends not on the number of external works but on the zeal and charity with which the work is done; everything depends on the interior act of the will.” Amongst his authorities he quotes the far-famed theologian of his Order, Duns Scotus, who had enunciated the principle with the concision of the scholastic: “_Deus non pensat quantum sed ex quanto_.”[371]

“God wants, not your work, but your heart.” So Marquard of Lindau writes in his “Buch der X Gepot,” printed in 1483. Before this, under the heading: “That we must love God above all things,” he declares, that, whoever does not turn to God with his whole heart cannot merely by his works gain Him, even though he should surrender “all his possessions to God and allow himself to be burnt.”[372]

Thus we find in the writings of that period, language by no means wanting in vigour used in denunciation of the so-called “holiness-by-works”; hence Luther was certainly not first in the field to raise a protest.

From their preachers, too, the people frequently heard this same teaching.

Johann Herolt, a Dominican preacher, very celebrated at the commencement of the 15th century, points out clearly and definitely in his sermons on the Sunday Epistles, that every work must be inspired by and permeated with charity if man’s actions are not to deteriorate into a mere “holiness-by-works”; a poor man who, with a pure conscience, performs the meanest good work, is, according to him, of “far greater worth in God’s sight than the richest Prince who erects churches and monasteries while in a state of mortal sin”; the outward work was of small account.[373] Herolt thus becomes a spokesman of “inwardness” in the matter of the fulfilment of the duties of the Christian life;[374] many others spoke as he did.

Sound instruction concerning “holiness-by-works” and the necessary “inwardness” was to be found in the most popular works of devotion at the close of the Middle Ages.

The “Evangelibuch,” for instance, a sermon-book with glosses on the Sunday Gospels, has the following for those who are too much devoted to outward works: “It matters not how good a man may be or how many good works he performs unless, at the same time, he loves God.” The author even goes too far in his requirements concerning the interior disposition, and, agreeably with a view then held by many, will not admit as a motive for love a wholesome fear of the loss of God; he says a man must love God, simply because “he is the most excellent, highest and most worthy Good; ... for a man filled with Divine love does not desire the good which God possesses, but merely God Himself”; thus, in his repudiation of all so-called “holiness-by-works,” he actually goes to the opposite extreme.[375]

Man becomes pleasing to God not by reason of the number or greatness of his works, but through the interior justice wrought in him by grace; such is the opinion of the Dominican, Johann Mensing. He protests against being accused of disparaging God’s grace because at the same time he emphasises the value of works; he declares that he exalts the importance of God’s sanctifying Grace even more than his opponents (the Lutherans) did, because, so he says, “we admit (what they deny, thereby disparaging the grace of God), viz. that we are not simply saved by God, but that He so raises and glorifies our nature by the bestowal of grace, that we are able ourselves to merit our salvation and attain to it of our own free will, which, without His Grace, would be impossible. Hence our belief is not that we are led and driven like cattle who know not whither they go. We say: God gives us His grace, faith and charity, at first without any merit on our part; then follow good works and merits, all flowing from the same Grace, and finally eternal happiness for such works as bring down Grace.”[376]

This was the usual language in use in olden time, particularly in the years just previous to Luther, and it was in accordance with this that most of the faithful obediently shaped their lives. If abuses occurred--and it is quite true that we often do meet with a certain degree of formalism in the customs of the people--they cannot be regarded as the rule and were reproved by zealous and clear-sighted churchmen.

A favourite work at that time was the “Imitation of Christ” by Thomas à Kempis. Thousands, more particularly amongst the clergy and religious, were edified by the fervent and touching expositions of the author to permeate all works with the spirit of interior piety.[377] We know how strongly he condemns formalism as exemplified in frequent pilgrimages devoid of virtue and the spirit of penance, and how he does not spare even the religious; “the habit and the tonsure make but little alteration, but the moral change and the entire mortification of the passions make a true religious.”[378]

The practice of works of charity, which at that time flourished exceedingly among both clergy and laity, offered a field for the realisation of these principles of the true spirit in which good works are to be performed. We have countless proofs of how the faithful in Germany despoiled themselves of their temporal goods from the most sincere religious motives--out of love for their neighbour, or to promote the public Divine worship--“for the love of God our Lord,” as a common phrase, used in the case of numerous foundations, expresses it.

G. Uhlhorn, the Protestant author of the “Geschichte der christlichen Liebestätigkeit,” also pays a tribute to the spirit which preserved charity from degenerating into mere “holiness-by-works.” “We should be doing injustice to that period,” he says of the Middle Ages generally, “were we to think that it considered as efficacious, i.e. as satisfactory, mere external works apart from the motive which inspired them, for instance, alms without love.” In support he quotes Thomas of Aquin and Pope Innocent III, remarking, however, that even such alms as were bestowed without this spirit of love were regarded, by the standard authorities, as predisposing a man for the reception of Grace, and as deserving of temporal reward from God, hence not as altogether “worthless and unproductive.”[379]

* * * * *

Another fable concerning the Middle Ages, sedulously fostered by Luther in his writings, was, that, in those days man had never come into direct relations with God, that the hierarchy had constituted a partition between him and Christ, and that, thanks only to the new Evangel, had the Lord been restored to each man, as his personal Saviour and the object of all his hopes; Luther was wont to say that the new preaching had at length brought each one into touch with Christ the Lamb, Who taketh away our sin; Melanchthon, in his funeral oration on Luther, also said of him, that he had pointed out to every sinner the Lamb in Whom he would find salvation.

To keep to the symbol of the Lamb: The whole Church of the past had never ceased to tell each individual that he must seek in the Lamb of God purgation from his guilt and confirmation of his personal love of God. The Lamb was to her the very symbol of that confidence in Christ’s Redemption which she sought to arouse in each one’s breast. On the front of Old St. Peter’s, for instance, the Lamb was shown in brilliant mosaic, with the gentle Mother of the Redeemer on its right and the Key-bearer on its left, and this figure, in yet older times, had been preceded by the ancient “_Agnus Dei_.”[380]

Every Litany recited by the faithful in Luther’s day, no less than in earlier ages and in our own, concluded with the trustful invocation of the “Lamb of God”; the waxen “_Agnus Dei_,” blessed by the Pope, and so highly prized by the people, was but its symbol.[381] The Lamb of God was, and still is, solemnly invoked by priest and people in the Canon of the Mass for the obtaining of mercy and peace.

The centre of daily worship in the Catholic Church, in Luther’s day as in the remoter past, was ever the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The Lamb of God, which, according to Catholic belief, is there offered to the Father under the mystic elements, and mysteriously renews the sacrifice of the Cross, was as a well, daily opened, in which souls athirst for God might find wherewith to unite themselves in love and confidence with their Redeemer.

It was Luther who, with cruel hand, tore this pledge of hope and consolation from the heart of Christendom. Inspiring indeed are the allusions to the wealth of consolation contained in the Eucharist, which we find in one of the books in most general use in the days before Luther. “Good Jesus, Eternal Shepherd, thanks be to Thee Who permittest me, poor and needy as I am, to partake of the mystery of Thy Divine Sacrifice, and feedest me with Thy precious Body and Blood; Thou commandest me to approach to Thee with confidence. Come, sayest Thou, to Me, all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Confiding, O Lord, in Thy goodness and in Thy great mercy, I come sick to my Saviour, hungry and thirsty to the Fountain of life, needy to the King of Heaven, a servant to my Lord, a creature to my Creator, and one in desolation to my loving Comforter.”[382]

The doctrine that the Mass is a renewal of the Sacrifice of Christ “attained its fullest development in the Middle Ages”; thus Adolf Franz at the conclusion of his work “Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter.” At the close of the Middle Ages it was the rule to “direct the eyes of the faithful, during the sacrifice on the altar, to the sufferings and death of the Redeemer in all its touching and thrilling reality. At the altar a mystery is enacted; Christ suffers and dies; the priest represents Him, and every act typifies Christ’s Passion; just as He expired on the cross in actual fact, so, mystically, He dies upon the altar.”[383] Though some writers of the period dwell perhaps a little too much on the allegorical sense then so popular in explaining the various acts of the Mass, yet, in their conviction that its character was sacrificial and that it truly re-enacted the death of Christ, they were in perfect agreement with the past. In the explanations of the Mass everyone was reminded of his union with Christ; and our Lord’s sufferings “were brought before the mind of both priest and people”; by this means the “outward ceremonial of the Mass was made a fruitful source of inward edification.” “The abundant mediæval literature on the Mass is a proof both of the needs of the clergy, and of the care displayed by the learned and those in authority, to instruct them. In this matter the 15th century excels the earlier Middle Ages.”[384] The very abuses and the formalism which Franz finds witnessed to in certain mediæval sermons on the Mass, chiefly in the matter of undue stress laid on the “fruits of the Mass,” reveal merely an over-estimation on the part of the individual of his union with Christ, or a too great assurance of obtaining help in bodily and spiritual necessities; of want of fervour or of hope there is not the least trace.

It is well worthy of note that Luther, if we may believe what he said in a sermon in 1532, even in his monastic days, did not prize or love the close bond of union established with Christ by the daily sacrifice of the Mass: “Ah, bah, Masses! Let what cannot stand fast fall. You never cared about saying Mass formerly; of that I am sure. I know it from my own case; for I too was a holy monk, and blasphemed my dear Lord miserably for the space of quite fifteen years with my saying of Masses, though I never liked doing so, in spite of being so holy and devout.”[385]

In spite of this Luther succeeded in bequeathing to posterity the opinion that it was he who delivered people from that “alienation from God” imposed on the world in the Middle Ages; “who broke down the prohibition of the mediæval Church against anyone concerning himself on his own account with matters of religion”; and who gave back “personal religion” to the Christian.

Were Protestants to bestow more attention on the religious literature of the Later Middle Ages, such statements would be simply impossible. One of those best acquainted with this literature writes: “During the last few months the present writer has gone carefully, pen in hand, through more than one hundred printed and manuscript religious works, written in German and belonging to the end of the Middle Ages: catechetical handbooks, general works of piety, confession manuals, postils, prayer-books, booklets on preparation for death and German sermonaries. In this way he has learnt from the most reliable sources not only how in those days people were guided to devout intercourse with God, but also with what fervent piety the faithful were accustomed to converse with their Saviour.” Let Protestants, he adds, at least attempt to vindicate their pet assertions “scientifically, i.e. from trustworthy sources.”[386]

The relations between the individual and God were by no means suppressed because the priesthood stood as an intermediary between the faithful and God, or because ecclesiastical superiors watched over and directed public worship and the lines along which the life of faith was to move. If the union of the individual with God was endangered by such interference on the part of the clergy, then it was endangered just as much by Luther, who insists so strongly on the preachers being listened to, and on the ministers taking the lead in things pertaining to God.

He teaches, for instance: “It is an unsufferable blasphemy to reject the public ministry or to say that people can become holy without sermons and Church. This involves a destruction of the Church and rebellion against ecclesiastical order; such upheavals must be warded off and punished like all other revolts.”[387]

The fact is, the ecclesiastical order of things to which Luther attached himself more and more strongly amounted to this, as he declares in various passages of his Table-Talk. Through the ministers and preachers, as through His servants, God speaks to man; through them God baptises, instructs and absolves; what the ministers of the Gospel say and do, that God Himself does through and in us as His instruments. Whoever does not believe this, Luther looks on as damned. In a sermon of 1528, speaking of the spiritual authority which intervenes between God and man, he exclaims: “God requires for His Kingdom pious Bishops and pastors, through them he governs His subjects [the Emperor, on the other hand, so he had said, had not even to be a Christian since the secular power was all outward and merely served to restrain evil-doers].[388] If you will not hearken to these Bishops and pastors, then you will have to listen to Master Hans [the hangman] and get no thanks either.”[389]

He uses similar language in his sermons on Matthew: “God, by means of Prophets and Apostles, ministers and preachers, baptises, gives the sacraments, preaches and consoles; without preachers and holy persons, He does nothing, just as He does not govern land and people without the secular power.”[390]

Hence Luther shows himself very anxious to establish a kind of hierarchy. If then he charges the priesthood of the past with putting itself between God and man, it is hard to see how he is to avoid a similar charge being brought forward against himself. Moreover, at the bottom of his efforts, memories of his Catholic days were at work, and the feeling that an organised ministry was called for if the religious sentiment was not to die out completely among the people. His practical judgment of the conditions even appears here in a favourable light, for instance, in those passages where he insists on the authority of rightly appointed persons to act as intermediaries between God and man, and as vicars and representatives of Christ. The word Christ spoke on earth and the word of the preacher, are, he says, one and the same “_re et effectu_,” because Christ said: “He that heareth you heareth me” (Luke x. 16); “God deals with us through these instruments, through them He works everything and offers us all His treasures.”[391] Indeed, “it is our greatest privilege that we have such a ministry and that God is so near to us; for he that hears Christ hears God Himself; and he that hears St. Peter or a preacher, hears Christ and God Himself speaking to us.”[392]

“We must always esteem the spoken Word very highly, for those who despise it become heretics at once. The Pope despises this ministry”[393] [!]. God, however, “has ordained that no one should have faith, except thanks to the preacher’s office,” and, “without the Word, He does no work whatever in the Church.”[394]

Thus we find Luther, on the one hand insisting upon an authority, and, on the other, demanding freedom for the interpretation of Scripture. How he sought to harmonise the two is reserved for later examination. At any rate, it is to misapprehend both the Catholic Church and Luther’s own theological attitude, to say that “independent study of religious questions” had been forbidden in the Middle Ages and was “reintroduced” only by Luther, that he removed the “blinkers” which the Church had placed over people’s eyes and that henceforward “the representatives of the Church had no more call to assume the place of the Living God in man’s regard.”

* * * * *

Luther also laid claim to having revived respect for the secular authorities, who, during the Middle Ages, had been despised owing to the one-sided regard shown to the monks and clergy. He declares that he had again brought people to esteem the earthly calling, family life and all worldly employments as being a true serving of God. Boldly he asserts, that, before my time, “the authorities did not know they were serving God”; “before my time nobody knew ... what the secular power, what matrimony, parents, children, master, servant, wife or maid really signified.” On the strength of his assertions it has been stated, that he revived the “ideal of life” by discovering the “true meaning of vocation,” which then became the “common property of the civilised world”; on this account he was “the creator of those theories which form the foundation upon which the modern State and modern civilisation rest.”

The fact is, however, the Church of past ages fully recognised the value of the secular state and spheres of activity, saw in them a Divine institution, and respected and cherished them accordingly.

A very high esteem for all secular callings is plainly expressed in the sermons of Johann Herolt, the famous and influential Nuremberg Dominican, whose much-read “_Sermones de tempore et de Sanctis_” (Latin outlines of sermons for the use of German preachers) had, prior to 1500, appeared in at least forty different editions.

“It has been asked,” he says in one sermon, “whether the labour of parents for their children is meritorious. I reply: Yes, if only they have the intention of bringing up their children for the glory of God and in order that they may become good servants of Christ. If the parents are in a state of grace, then all their trouble with their children, in suckling them, bathing them, carrying them about, dressing them, feeding them, watching by them, teaching and reproving them, redounds to their eternal reward. All this becomes meritorious. And in the same way when the father labours hard in order to earn bread for his wife and children, all this is meritorious for the life beyond.”[395]--A high regard for work is likewise expressed in his sermon “To workmen,” which begins with the words: “Man is born to labour as the bird is to fly.”[396] Another sermon praises the calling of the merchant, which he calls a “good and necessary profession.”[397]

Another witness to the Church’s esteem for worldly callings and employments is Marcus von Weida, a Saxon Dominican. In the discourses he delivered on the “Our Father” at Leipzig, in 1501, he says: “All those pray who do some good work and live virtuously.” For everything that a man does to the praise and glory of God is really prayer. A man must always do what his state of life and his calling demands. “Hence it follows that many a poor peasant, husbandman, artisan or other man who does his work, or whatever he undertakes, in such a way as to redound to God’s glory, is more pleasing to God, by reason of the work he daily performs, and gains more merit before God than any Carthusian or Friar, be he Black, Grey or White, who stands daily in choir singing and praying.”[398]

It is evident that Catholic statements, such as that just quoted from Herolt, concerning the care of children being well-pleasing to God, have been overlooked by those who extol Luther as having been the first to discover and teach, that even to rock children’s cradles and wash their swaddling clothes is a noble, Christian work. What is, however, most curious is the assurance with which Luther himself claimed the merit of this discovery, in connection with his teaching on marriage.

The Carthusian, Erhard Gross, speaks very finely of the different secular callings and states of life, and assigns to them an eminently honourable place: “What are the little precious stones in Christ’s crown but the various classes of the Christian people, who adorn the head of Christ? For He is our Head and all the Christian people are His Body for ever and ever. Hence, amongst the ornaments of the house of God some must be virgins, others widows, some married and others chaste, such as monks, priests and nuns. Nor are these all, for we have also Princes, Kings and Prelates who rule the commonwealth, those who provide for the needs of the body, as, for instance, husbandmen and fishermen, tailors and merchants, bakers and shoemakers, and, generally, all tradesmen.” If the general welfare is not to suffer, he says, each one must faithfully follow his calling. “Therefore whoever wishes to please God, let him stick to the order [state] in which God has placed him and live virtuously; he will then receive his reward from God here, and, after this life, in the world to come.”[399]