Chapter XXVI: Luther’s Mode of Controversy a Counterpart of His Soul (2)

Psychologically to appreciate the phenomenon in question we must first of all take into account Luther’s temperament.

To every unprejudiced observer it must be clear, that, without the unusual excitability natural to him, many of his utterances would be quite inexplicable; even when we have given due weight to Luther’s ungovernable temper and all too powerful imagination they still present many difficult questions to the observer. Luther himself, as early as 1520, excuses to Spalatin his offensive language on the ground of his natural “hot-bloodedness”; as everybody knew what his temper was, his opponents ought not to annoy him as they did; yet these “monsters” only provoked him the more, and made him “overstep the bounds of modesty and decency.”[1059] It is perfectly true that some of his foes did provoke him by their mode of attack, yet on the other hand his own violence usually put theirs in the shade. (See below, xxvii., 4.)

In addition to his natural impetuosity which furnishes the chief basis of the phenomenon under consideration, several other factors must also be envisaged, depending on the objects or persons arousing his indignation.

It is clear that he was within his rights when he scourged the anti-Christian blasphemy and seductive wiles of the Jews, however much he may have been in the wrong in allowing himself to be carried away by fanaticism so far as to demand their actual persecution. The same holds good of many of the instances of his ungenerous and violent behaviour towards “heretics” in his own fold. As against the many and oftentimes very palpable defects of their position, he knew how to stand up for truth and logic, though his way of doing so was not always happy, nor his strictures untouched by his own theological errors.

Nor can it be denied that he was in the right when he assailed the real, and, alas, all too many abuses of the olden Church. The lively sense that, at least in this respect, he was in the right may quite possibly have fed the inward fire of his animosity to Catholics, all the more owing to his being in the wrong in those new doctrines which were his principal concern. To the assurance, and the offensive manner in which he insisted on a reform, his visit to Rome, a distorted recollection of which ever remained with him, no doubt contributed. His mind was ever reverting to the dismal picture--by no means an altogether imaginary one--of the immorality prevailing in even the highest ecclesiastical circles of Rome.

Rome’s unworthy treatment of the system of indulgences, which had afforded the occasion of his action in 1517, continued to supply new fuel for his indignation; to it he was fond of tracing back his whole undertaking. What increased his anger was the thought that it was this same Rome, whose ignoble practices both in the matter of indulgences and in other fields was notorious, who had called him to judgment. It is painful to the Catholic to have to confess that many of Luther’s complaints were by no means unfounded. He will, however, call to mind the better churchmen of those days, who, though indignant at the sad corruption then prevalent, never dreamt of apostasy, knowing as they did, that even far worse scandals could never justify a revolt against the institution appointed by Christ for the salvation of souls.

Even when voicing his real grievances Luther was seldom either prudent or moderate. He never seems to have quite taken to heart the scriptural injunction: “Let every man be slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man worketh not the justice of God.” He expounds in his Postils the Epistle where the admonition in question occurs,[1060] but it is curious to note how cursorily he dismisses the words, with which, maybe, he felt somewhat out of sympathy, though here, as elsewhere, he refers to the evil consequences of any proneness to anger. On the other hand, he insists, that “our censures and rebukes” must be in accordance with the “right and true Word,” i.e. with theology as he understood it.[1061] He prefers to devote far the greater portion of the exposition to proving his favourite thesis, that, thanks to the Evangel now proclaimed, “we have a good and cheerful conscience, stronger than all fear, sin and temptation, and containing the sure hope of life everlasting”;[1062] “it is a Word that has power to save your souls; what more can you desire?”[1063] He seems averse to inculcating that meekness which the text requires.

* * * * *

One factor which frequently fanned the flames was jealousy, when, for instance, he had to deal with theological opponents who appeared to be making too small account of him. The new Evangel, he said, was endangered by none more than by the “fanatics and sacramentarians”; to defend his personal position against them had cost him the hardest struggle of his whole life; no wonder that against them he opened wide the sluice-gates of his eloquence. He was keenly sensitive to any slight. “Things are going all wrong in the world,” he sighed in 1532. “We are already looked upon with contempt, but let us gather up the fragments when they are cheapest, that is what I advise.”[1064] Of Carlstadt twelve years previous he had written: “If he has no respect for me, which of us then will he respect? And what is the good of admonishing him? I believe he reckons me one of the most learned men in Wittenberg, and yet he actually tells me to my very face that I am nobody.... He writes right and left just as he chooses and looks on poor Wittenberg as quite beneath his notice.”[1065] Luther’s vexation explains his language. A pity one of the Princes did not let him taste cold steel; if Carlstadt believed in a God in heaven, then might Christ never more be gracious to him (Luther); he was no man, but an incarnation of the evil spirit, etc.

Not merely his former friend Carlstadt but others too he accused of inordinate ambition because they wished to discredit his discoveries and his position. “It is the ‘_gloria_’ that does the mischief,” he said in 1540 in his Table-Talk, “Zwingli was greedy of honour, as we see from what he wrote, viz. that he had learnt nothing from me. I should indeed be sorry had he learnt from me, for he went astray. Œcolampadius thought himself too learned to listen to me or to learn from me; of course, he too, surpassed me. Carlstadt also declares: ‘I care nothing for you,’ and Münzer actually declaimed against two Popes, the new one [myself] and the old.[1066] All who shun us and attack us secretly have departed from the faith, like Jeckel and Grickel [Jakob Schenk and Johann Agricola]; they reached their understanding by their own efforts and learnt nothing from us! Just like Zwingli.” Yet twenty-five years before (i.e. previous to his great discovery in 1515) no one “knew anything,” and, twenty-one years before, he, all alone, under the Divine guidance had put the ball in motion. “Ah, κενοδοξία [vainglory], that’s the mischief.”[1067]

Jealousy played its part also, when, in 1525, he rounded so violently upon Zwingli and the Zwinglians at Strasburg. Zwingli’s crime in his eyes lay not merely in his having, like Œcolampadius, adopted a divergent doctrine on the Eucharist, but in his claim to have been before Luther in preaching the Gospel of Christ openly according to its true meaning.[1068] Both circumstances contributed to Luther’s ire, which, after finding vent in many angry words, culminated at last in the rudest abuse of Zwingli and his “devilish” crew. Already in 1525, he wrote in the instruction for the people of Strasburg which he gave to Gregory Casel, who had come to Wittenberg to negotiate:[1069] “One of the parties must be the tool of Satan, i.e. either they or we.”[1070] “Christ can have no part with Belial.” And, before this: “They [Zwingli and Œcolampadius] disturb our Church and weaken our repute. Hence we cannot remain silent. If they would be vexed to see their own reputation suffer, let them also think of ours.” “They ought to have held their tongues long ago [on the question of the Sacrament]; now silence comes too late.” He concludes with the assurance, that their error was refuted by “the Spirit,” and that it was impossible they could have any certainty concerning their doctrine, whereas he could justly boast, that he had the experience of the faith and the testimony of the Spirit (“_experimentum fidei et spiritus testimonium_”). “They will never win the day. It pains me that Zwingli and his followers take offence at my saying that ‘What I write must be true.’”

Apart from the doctrine on the Sacrament, the other thing which helped to annoy him stands revealed more plainly in the letter addressed on the same day to the Strasburg preachers: “We dare to boast that Christ was first made known by us, and now Zwingli actually comes and accuses us of denying Christ.”[1071] Bossuet was quite right in arguing that such petty jealousy on Luther’s part is scarcely to his credit.[1072] He quotes a criticism on Luther’s behaviour by George Calixt, the famous Lutheran professor of theology at Helmstädt: “The sweetness of vainglory is so seductive and human weakness so great, that even those who despise all things and risk their goods, yea life itself, may succumb to inordinate ambition.” Luther, too, had high aims; “we cannot be surprised that, even a man so large-minded as Luther, should have written such things to the people of Strasburg.”[1073]

Offended vanity played a part as great and even more obvious in Luther’s furious polemics against the literary defenders of the Church. One cannot help noticing how, especially when they had succeeded in making out a clear case against him, his answer was a torrent of most unsparing abuse.

* * * * *

The eloquence which he had at his command also constituted a temptation. He was well aware of the force with which his impassioned language carried others away. Very little was thus needed to induce him to take up this formidable weapon which at least ensured his success among the masses. He himself revelled in the unquenchable wealth of his vituperative vocabulary, and with it he caught the fancy of thousands who loved nothing more than a quarrel. If it be true that all popular orators are exposed to the temptation to exaggerate, to say things which are striking rather than correct, and, generally, to court the applause of the crowd, this danger was even greater in Luther’s case owing to the whole character of the controversy he had stirred up. In the midst of a stormy sea one does not speak softly. Luther’s abuse was, however, powerful enough to be heard above even the most furious tempest.

For his work Luther required an extraordinary stimulus. He would have succumbed under the countless and burdensome labours which devolved on him had he not constantly aroused himself anew by the exercise of a sort of violence. Vituperation thus became to him a real need. When he had succeeded thereby in working himself up into a passion his mind grew clearer and his imagination more vigorous, so that he found it all the easier to borrow from the lips of the mob that rude language of which he makes such fell use. He kindles his animation by dwelling on the “vermin and running sores of Popery.”

In the same way from time to time he found the need of unburdening himself of his ill-humour. The small success of his labours for the reform of morals and his other annoying experiences gave him many an unhappy hour. His bad humour found an outlet in abuse and vituperation, particularly against the enemies of the Evangel. He himself was unable to conceal the real grounds of the vexation which he vented on the Papacy, for, often enough, after storming against the Papists, he complains bitterly of his own followers’ contempt for the “Word” and of their evil lives.

After the utterance already recorded: “We must curse the Pope and his kingdom,” he goes on to levy charges of the worst character against those of his own party, and pours forth on them, too, all the vials of his wrath and disappointment. It was in this connection that he said, that the Evangelicals were seven times worse than before; for the one devil that had been expelled, seven worse had entered in, so horribly did they lie, cheat, gorge and swill and indulge in every vice; princes, lords, nobles, burghers and peasants alike had lost all fear of God.[1074]

Another example, taken this time from the year 1536. Full of anger against the Pope he said to a friend who held a high post: “My dear fellow, do hurl a Paternoster as a curse against the Papacy that it may be smitten with the Dance of St. Vitus.” He adds: “Don’t mind my way of speaking, for indeed you know it well; I am coarse and rough ... so sore beset, oppressed and overwhelmed with business of all kinds, that, to save my poor carcase I must sometimes indulge in a little pleasure, for, after all, man is only human”[1075]--an utterance psychologically valuable. The real reason for the depression against which he was struggling is, however, clearer in other letters dating from that time. In them we get a glimpse of his grievous vexation and annoyance with the false teachers within the Evangelical fold: “New prophets are arising one after the other. I almost long to be delivered [by death] so as not to have to go on seeing so much mischief, and to be free at last from this kingdom of the devil. I implore you to pray to God that He would grant me this.”[1076]

Lastly, his outbursts against the Papacy served to cover his own anxiety of conscience.

In the same way as others who leave their Church, fling themselves into the turmoil and distractions of the world in order to escape their scruples, Luther too, allayed the reproach of his conscience by precipitating himself into the midst of the storm he had evoked; with this advantage, that the sharp weapons of abuse and scorn he employed could be turned against the enemy both without and within. Accustomed as he was to treat the voice of conscience as the voice of Satan, he willingly clung to the doubtful consolation that the stronger his abuse of his opponents the greater his own encouragement. The evil which he detected in Popery seemed to him to load the scale in his own favour. He even admits this with the most engaging frankness.

“I am quite ready to allow that the Pope’s abomination is, after Christ, my greatest consolation. Hence those are hopeless simpletons who say we should not abuse the Pope. Don’t be slow in abuse, particularly when the devil attacks you on Justification.” He intends “to infuse courage into himself by considering the abomination and horror” of the Pope; and to “hold it up under the devil’s nose.”[1077] Döllinger remarks justly: “Here [in these anxieties of conscience] is to be found at least a partial psychological explanation of that wealth of bitter abuse which marks off Luther’s writings from all other literary products, ancient or mediæval.... Not seldom he sought to deaden the interior terrors of a reproving conscience with the noisy clamour of his vituperation.”[1078]

We have just heard Luther promise to hold up the Pope’s abomination to the devil’s nose. This saying brings us to the principal explanation of the phenomenon under consideration.

_Connection of Luther’s Abusiveness with his Mystic Persuasion of his Special Call._

Luther had brought himself to such a pitch as to see in the existing Church the devil’s kingdom, to overthrow which, with its Antichrist, was his own sublime mission. This theological, anti-diabolical motive for his anger and boundless invective, throws all others into the shade.

“Even were I not carried away by my hot temper and my style of writing,” he says, “I should still be obliged to take the field, as I do, against the enemies of truth” (“children of the devil” he calls them elsewhere). “I am hot-headed enough, nor is my pen blunt.” But these foes “revel in the most horrible crimes not merely against me, but even against God’s Word.” Did not Christ Himself have recourse to abuse, he asks, against the “wicked and adulterous generation of the Jews, against the brood of vipers, the hypocrites and children of the devil”? “Whoever is strong in the consciousness of the truth, can display no patience towards its furious and ferocious enemies.”[1079]

The more vividly he persuaded himself of his mission, the blacker were the colours in which he painted the devil of Popery who refused to believe in it, and the more strangely did there surge up from the sombre depths of his soul and permeate his whole being a hatred the like of which no mortal man had ever known before. In such outbursts Luther thinks he is “raving and raging [’_debacchari_’] against Satan”; for instance, in a letter to Melanchthon, dated from the fortress of Coburg, “from the stronghold full of devils where Christ yet reigns in the midst of His foes.” Even when unable from bodily weakness to write against the devil, yet he could at least rage against him in thought and prayer; “the Pope’s enormities (‘_portenta_’) against God and against the common weal” supplied him with material in abundance.[1080]

God had appointed him, so we read elsewhere, “to teach and to instruct,” as “an Apostle and Evangelist in the German lands” (were it his intention to boast); for he knows that he teaches “by the Grace of God, whose name Satan shall not destroy nor deprive me of to all eternity”; therefore I must unsparingly “expose my back parts to the devil ... so as to enrage him still more.” To the wrath of all the devils, bishops, and princes he will pay as little heed as to the rustle of a bat’s wing, nor will he spare the “traitors and murderers.”[1081]

As early as 1520 he revealed to an intimate friend the morbidly exaggerated ideas which moved him: As an excuse for his dreadful vituperation he alleges his pseudo-mystic conception of the life and death struggle he was to engage in with the devil, and his sense of the “_impetus Spiritus_”; this he pleads in extenuation to his friend, who would appear to have reminded him of the dangers of pride. “All condemn my sarcasm,” he admits, but, now that the Spirit has moved him, he may set himself on a line with the “prophets” of the Old Law who “were so harsh in their invective,” nay, with Paul the Apostle, whose severe censures were ever present in his mind. In fact, God Himself, according to Luther, is to some extent present in these utterances by means of His power and action, and, “sure enough, intends in this way to unmask the inventions of man.”[1082]

As compared with the interior force with which the idea of his mission inspired him, all his violence, particularly in his polemics with the Catholic theologians and statesmen, appeared to him far too weak. Thus his “Wider Hans Worst” against the Catholic Duke of Brunswick, though reeking of blood and hate, seemed to him to fall short of the mark and to be all too moderate, so at least he told Melanchthon, to all appearance quite seriously.[1083] His inability ever to exhaust his indignation goes back to the idea expressed by him in the same letter with such startling candour and conviction as to remind one of the ravings of a man possessed by a fixed delusion: “It is certain that it is God Who is fighting.” “Our cause is directed by the hand of God, not by our own wisdom. The Word makes its way and prayer glows ... hence we might well sleep in peace were we not mere flesh.” His hint at the near approach of the Last Judgment, the many signs of which could not escape notice, more than confirms the pseudo-mystic character both of his confidence and of his hate.[1084]

On other occasions traces of his pet superstitions are apparent, and, when we take them together, prove beyond a doubt the unhealthy state of the mind from which they sprang. For instance, Luther professes to know particulars of the approaching end of the world concerning which the Bible says nothing; he also has that curious list of opponents miraculously slain by the Divine hand, and even fancies he can increase it by praying for the death of those who, not sharing his opinions, stood in his way: “This year we must pray Duke Maurice to death; we must slay him by our prayers, for he is likely to prove a wicked man.” On the same occasion he also attributes to himself a sort of prophetic gift: “I am a prophet.”[1085] The foretelling of future events and the fulfilment in his own person of olden prophecies and visions, and again the many miracles and expulsions of the devil which accompany the spread of his teaching, confirm his Evangel and impress the stamp of Divine approbation on his hatred of Antichrist.[1086] Divine portents, which, however, no one but Luther would have recognised as such, were also exploited: the birth of the monstrous Monk-Calf; the Pope-Ass fished from the Tiber; signs in the heavens and on the earth. The Book of Daniel and St. John’s Apocalypse supplied him when necessary with the wished-for interpretation, though his far-fetched speculations would better become a mystic dreamer than a sober theologian and spiritual guide of thousands. All this was crowned by the diabolical manifestations which he himself experienced, though what he took for apparitions of the devil was merely the outcome of an overwrought mind.[1087]

This enables us to seize that second nature of his, made up of superhuman storming and vituperation, and to understand, how, in his hands, wild abuse of the Papacy became quite a system.

“I shall put on my horns,” he wrote to a friend in 1522, “and vex Satan until he lies stretched out on the ground. Don’t be afraid, but neither expect me to spare my gainsayers; should they be hard hit by the new movement, that is not our fault, but a judgment from above on their tyranny.”[1088] Shortly after he wrote in a similar strain to reassure some unknown correspondent concerning his unusual methods of controversy: “Hence, my dear friend, do not wonder that many take offence at my writings. For it _must_ be that only a few hold fast to the Gospel [the friend had pointed out to him that many of his followers were being scared away by his abuse].... His Highness my master has admonished me in writing, and many other friends have done the same. But my reply is ever that I neither can nor will refrain from it.”[1089]

Abuse becomes almost inseparable from his teaching, or at least seems entailed by it. “Whoever accepts my teaching with a right heart,” he says, “will not be scandalised by my abuse.” Indeed, he adds, emulating Hus, he was ready “to risk his life should persecution or the needs of the time demand it.” Nor have we any reason to doubt that his misguided enthusiasm would have rendered him capable of such a sacrifice.[1090]

In 1531 the Elector Johann sent him a reprimand through Chancellor Brück on account of the two violent tracts, “Warnunge an seine lieben Deudschen” and “Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict.” George of Saxony had, it appears, complained to the Elector, that these writings “served in no small measure to incite to rebellion, and also contained much abuse both of high and low.”[1091] Hereupon Luther, with the utmost impudence, vindicated his cause to his sovereign: “That certain persons may have informed your Electoral Highness that the two writings were sharp and hasty, this is indeed true; I never meant them to be blunt and kind, and only regret that they were not more severe and violent”; for all he had said of such “lying, blasphemous, asinine” opponents--especially considering the danger in which the Electoral house stood--fell short of the mark; the Prince should bear in mind that he [Luther] had been “far too mild and soft in dealing with such evil knots and boughs.”[1092]

But “the knots and boughs” of his literary opponents did not consist entirely in coarse insults, but largely in the well-grounded vindication against his unwarranted attacks of the religion of their fathers, in which they saw the true basis of the common weal. His opponents had necessarily to take the defensive; Luther, with his furious words and actions, was in almost every case the aggressor, and forestalled their writings.

It is plain that, at the very time when he thus explained his position to the Elector Johann, i.e. about the time of the Diet of Augsburg, in 1530, he was under the influence of that inner power of which he had said: “I am carried away I know not by what spirit”; “I am not master of myself.” He exclaims: “In God’s name and at His command I will tread upon the lion and adder and trample under foot the lion and dragon [it is thus that he applies the Messianic prophecy in Ps. xc. 13]; this shall commence during my lifetime and be accomplished after my death. St. John Hus prophesied of me,” etc.[1093] More than ever he lays stress on the fact that he has a “Divine mission,” and was “called by God to a work,” not commenced “of his own initiative”; for which cause also “God was with him and assisted him.”[1094] He means to realise his earlier threat (1521): “If I live I shall never make peace with the Papacy; if you kill me you shall have twice as little peace. Do your worst, you swine and Thomists. Luther will be to you a bear in the road and a lion in the path [as Osee says]. He will meet you everywhere and not leave you in peace until your brazen front and stiff neck be broken, either by gentleness or by force. I have lost enough patience already; if you will not amend you may continue to rage against me and I to despise you, you abandoned monsters.”[1095]

He is now determined to carry out his threat of 1527 even at the cost of his life: “My teaching shall cry aloud and smite right and left; may God deny me the gifts of patience and meekness. My cry is: No, No, No, so long as I can move a muscle, let it vex King, Emperor, Princes, the devil, or whom it may.... Bishops, priests, monks, great Johnnies, scholars and the whole world are all thirsting for the gore of Luther, whose executioners they would gladly be, and the devil likewise and his crew.... My teaching is the main thing by which I defy not only princes and kings but even all the devils. I am and remain a mere sheep.... Not following my own conceit, I may have attacked a tyrant or great scholar and given him a cut and made him angry, but let him be ready for thirty more.... Let no one, least of all the tyrants and persecutors of the Evangel, expect any patience or humility from me.... What must not my wrath be with the Papists who are my avowed enemies?... Come on, all together, since you all belong to one batch, devils, Papists, fanatics, fall upon Luther! Papists from the front, fanatics from the rear, devils from every side! Chase him, hunt him down gaily, you have found the right quarry. Once Luther is down you are saved and have won the day. But I see plainly that words are of no avail; no abuse, no teaching, no exhortation, no menaces, no promises, no beseeching serve our purpose.... Well, then, in God’s name, let us try defiance. Whoever relents, let him go; whoever is afraid, let him flee; I have at my back a strong Defender.... I have well served the world and brought Holy Scripture and the Word of God to light in a way unheard of for a thousand years. I have done my part; your blood be upon your own head and not on my hands!”[1096]

Nevertheless, at times he appears to have had some slight qualms. Yet after having described the Papists as “Pope-Asses, slaves of the Mass, blasphemers, miscreants and murderers of souls,”[1097] he continues: “Should anyone here say that I confine myself to flinging coarse epithets about me and can do nothing but slander and abuse, I would reply, firstly, that such abuse is nothing compared with the unspeakable wickedness. For what is it if I abuse the devil as a murderer, miscreant, traitor, blasphemer and liar? To him all this is but a gentle breeze! But what else are the Pope-Asses but devils incarnate, who know not penance, whose hearts are hardened and who knowingly defend their palpable blasphemy.... Hence my abuse is not abuse at all, but just the same as were I to call a turnip a turnip, an apple an apple, or a pear a pear.”[1098]

A psychological explanation of Luther’s mania for invective is also to be looked for in the admixture of vile ingredients which went to make up his abuse. So frequently had he recourse to such when in a state of excitement that they must be familiar to every observer of Luther’s development and general behaviour; it is, however, our duty here to incorporate this element, so characteristic of his polemics, in our sketch of the angry Luther.

_The Unpleasant Seasoning of Luther’s Abuse._

The filthy expressions, to which Luther was so prone when angry, are psychologically interesting, throwing light as they do on the depth of his passion and on the all too earthly atmosphere which pervades his abuse. Had Luther’s one object, as writer and teacher, been to vindicate spiritual treasures he would surely have scorned to make use of such adjuncts as these in his teaching or his polemics. Even when desirous of speaking forcibly, as beseemed a man of his stamp, he would have done so without introducing these disreputable and often repulsive elements of speech. He was, however, carried away by an imagination only too familiar with such vulgar imagery, and a tongue and pen much too ready to speak or write of things of that sort. Unless he places pressure on himself a man’s writings give a true picture of his inner standards, and pressure was something which Luther’s genius could never endure.

Luther had, moreover, a special motive for drawing his creations from this polluted well. He wished to arouse the lower classes and to ingratiate himself with those who, the less capable they were of thinking for themselves or of forming a true judgment, were all the readier to welcome coarseness, banter and the tone of the gutter. Amidst their derisive laughter he flings his filth in the face of his opponents, of the Catholics throughout the world, the Pope, the hierarchy and the German past.

If at Rome they had to prove that the Keys had been given to St. Peter “the Pope’s nether garments would fare badly.”[1099] Of the Papal dispensation for the clergy to marry, which many confidently expected, Luther says, that it would be just the thing for the devil; “let him open his bowels over his dispensation and sling it about his neck.”[1100]--The Princes and nobles (those who were on the other side) “soiled their breeches so shamefully in the Peasant War that even now they can be smelt afar off.”[1101]--He declares of the head of the Church of Rome: “Among real Christians no one is more utterly despicable than the Pope ... he stinks like a hoopoe’s nest.”[1102] Of those generally who opposed the Divine Word he says: “No smell is worse than yours.”[1103]--“Good-bye, beloved Rome; let what stinks go on stinking.”[1104]

“It is stupid of the Papists to wear breeches. How if they were to get drunk and let slip a motion?”[1105] This concern we find expressed in Luther’s “Etliche Sprüche wider das Concilium Obstantiense” (1535). And it is quite in keeping with other utterances in the same writing. He there speaks of the “dragons’ heads that peep and spew out of the hind-quarters of the Pope-Ass,”[1106] and on the same page ventures to address our Saviour as follows: “Beloved Lord Jesus Christ, it is high time that Thou shouldst lay bare, back and front, the shame of the furious, bloodthirsty, purple-clad harridan and reveal it to the whole world in preparation for the dawn of Thy bright Coming.”

Naturally he is no less unrestrained in his attacks on all who defended Popery. Of Eck’s ideas on chastity he remarks: “Your he-goat to your nostrils smells like balsam.”[1107] Of Cardinal Albert of Mayence and his party he wrote, during the Schönitz controversy: These “knaves and liars” “bring out foul rags fit only for devils and men to use in the closet.”[1108] The epithet, merd-priest, merd-bishop, is several times applied by him to members of the Catholic hierarchy.[1109] “The poor merd-priest wanted to ease himself, but, alas, there was nothing in his bowels.”[1110]

The Jurists who still clung to Canon Law he declares “invade the churches with their Pope like so many swine; yet there is another place whither they might more seemingly betake themselves if they wish to wipe the fundament of their Pope.”[1111] The Italians think that “whatever a Cardinal gives vent to, however vile it be, is a new article of faith promulgated for the benefit of the Germans.”[1112] To the Papists who threaten him with a Council he says: “If they are angry let them ease themselves into their breeches and sling it round their neck; that will be real balsam and pax for such thin-skinned saints.”[1113]--The fanatics who opposed his teaching on the Sacrament were also twitted on the score that “they would surely ease themselves on it and make use of it in the privy.”[1114] The Princes and scoundrel nobles faithfully followed the devil’s lead, who cannot bear to listen to God’s Word “but shows it his backside.”[1115] How are we best to answer an opponent, even the Pope? As though he were a “despicable drunkard.” “Give them the fig” (i.e. make a certain obscene gesture with the fist).[1116]--Such is his own remedy in all hostility and every misfortune: “I give them the fig.”[1117] His usual counsel is, however, to turn one’s “posterior” on them.

The Pope is the “filth which the devil has dropped in the Church”; he is the “devil’s bishop and the devil himself.”[1118]--Commenting on the Papal formula “_districte mandantes_,” he adds: “Ja, in Ars.”[1119] They want “me to run to Rome and fetch forgiveness of sins. Yes, forsooth, an evacuation!”[1120]

Of the Pope’s Bull of excommunication he says “they ought to order his horrid ban to be taken to the back quarters where children of Adam go to stool; it might then be used as a pocket-handkerchief.”[1121]--We must seize hold of the “vices” of the Pope and his clergy and show them up as real lechers; thus should all those who hold the office of preacher “set their droppings under the very noses of the Pope and the bishops.”[1122] “The spirit of the Pope, the father of lies,” wishes to display his wisdom by so altering the Word of God, that it “reeks of his stale filth.”[1123]--These people, who, like the Pope, are so learned in the Scripture, are “clever sophists,” experts in equine anal functions.[1124] They have “taken it upon themselves to come to the assistance of the whole world with their chastity and good works,” but, in reality, they merely “stuff our mouths with horse-dung.”[1125]

Of the alleged Papal usurpations he exclaims: “Were such muck as this stirred up in a free Council, what a stench there would be!”[1126]--The same favourite figure of speech helps him against the Sacramentarians: “What useful purpose can be served by my raking up all the devil’s filth?”[1127]--This phrase was at least more in place when Luther, referring to Philip of Hesse’s bigamy, said, that he “was not going to stir up the filth under the public nose.”[1128]--After their defeat he refused to comply with the demand of the peasants, that he should support them in their lawlessness: They want us to lend them a hand in “stirring up thoroughly the filth that is so eager to stink, till their mouths and noses are choked with it.”[1129] But it is to the Pope and his followers that, by preference, he applies such imagery. “They have forsaken the stool of St. Peter and St. Paul and now parade their filth [concerning original sin]; to such a pass have they come that they no longer believe anything, whether concerning the Gospel, or Christ, or even their own teaching.”[1130]--“This is the filth they now purvey, viz. that we are saved by our works; this is the devil’s own poisonous tail.”[1131]--Of those who awaited the decision of a Council he writes: “Let the devil wait if he chooses.... The members of the body must not wait till the filth says and decrees whether the body is healthy or not. We are determined to learn this from the members themselves and not from the urine, excrement and filth. In the same way we shall not wait for the Pope and bishops in Council to say: This is right. For they are no part of the body, or clean and healthy members, but merely the filth of squiredom, merd spattered on the sleeve and veritable ordure, for they persecute the true Evangel, well knowing it to be the Word of God. Therefore we can see they are but filth, stench and limbs of Satan.”[1132]

At the time of the Diet of Augsburg, in 1530, he informed the delegates of his party: “You are treating, not with men, but with the very gates of hell.... But they have fallen foul of the wisdom of God and [the final sentence of this Latin epistle is in German] soil themselves with their own filthy wisdom. Amen, Amen.”[1133]--The words “bescheissen” and “beschmeissen” (cp. popular French: “emmerder”) flow naturally from Luther’s pen. Neobulus, the Hessian defender of the bigamy, he describes as “a prince of darkness,” who “has ‘defiled’ himself with his wisdom”;[1134] the papal “Jackanapes” who “declare that the Lutherans have risen in revolt,” have likewise “‘defiled’ themselves with their sophistry.”[1135]

He asserts he can say “with a clear conscience that the Pope is a merd-ass and the foe of God.”[1136] “The Pope-Ass has emitted a great and horrible ordure here.... A wonder it did not tear his anus or burst his belly.” “There lies the Pope in his own dung.”[1137] “The Popes are so fond of lies and scurrilities that their paunch waxes fat on them”; they are waiting to see “whether the Pope’s motions will not ultimately scare the kings.... The Papal hypocrites--I had almost said the devil’s excrements--boast of being masters over the whole world.”[1138]

Amidst these unavoidable quotations from Luther’s unpleasant vocabulary of abuse the historian is confronted again and again with the question: What relation does this coarser side of Luther’s style bear to the manners of his times? We have already pointed out how great the distance is between him and all other writers, particularly such as treat of religious subjects in a popular or polemical vein; obviously it is with the latter category of writings that his should be compared, rather than with the isolated aberrations of certain writers of romance or the lascivious works produced by the Humanists.[1139] Various quotations from contemporaries of Luther’s, even from friends of the innovations, have shown that his language both astonished and shocked them.[1140] It was felt that none other could pretend to measure himself beside this giant of invective.

Duke George of Saxony on one occasion told Luther in no kindly way that he knew peasants who spoke just the same, “particularly when the worse for drink”; indeed they went one better and “knew how to use their fists”; among them Luther would be taken for a swine-herd.[1141]

“Their inexhaustible passion for abuse,” wrote a Catholic contemporary in 1526, “makes me not a little suspicious of the teaching of this sect. No one is accounted a good pupil of Luther’s who is not an adept in abusive language; Luther’s own abuse knows no bounds.... Who can put up with such vituperation the like of which has not been heard for ages?... Read all this man’s writings and you will hardly find a page that is not sullied with vile abuse.”[1142]

It is true that the lowest classes, particularly in Saxony, as it would appear, were addicted to the use of smutty language in which they couched their resentment or their wit; this, however, was among themselves. In the writings of the Wittenberg professor of theology, on the other hand, this native failing emerges unabashed into the light of day, and the foul sayings which Luther--in his anxiety to achieve popularity--gathered from the lips of the rabble swept like a flood over the whole of the German literary field. Foul language became habitual, and, during the polemics subsequent on Luther’s death, whether against the Catholics or among the members of the Protestant fold, was a favourite weapon of attack with those who admired Luther’s drastic ways.

As early as 1522 Thomas Blaurer, a youthful student at Wittenberg, wrote: “No abuse, however low and shameful,” must be spared until Popery is loathed by all.[1143] Thus the object in view was to besmirch the Papacy by pelting it with mire. When, in 1558, Tilman Hesshusen, an old Wittenberg student, became Professor of Theology and General Superintendent at Heidelberg and thundered with much invective against his opponents and in favour of the Confession of Augsburg, even his friends asked the question, “whether the thousand devils he was wont to purvey from the pulpit helped to promote the pure cause of the Lutheran Evangel?” At Bremen, preaching against Hardenberg, a follower of Melanchthon’s, he declared, that he had turned the Cathedral into a den of murderers.[1144] In 1593 Nigrinus incited the people to abuse the Papists with the words: “Up against them boldly and fan the flames so that things may be made right warm for them!” George Steinhausen remarks in this connection in his History of German Civilisation: “Luther became quite a pattern of violent abuse and set the tone for the anti-popish ranters, who, most of them, belonged to the lowest class. On their side the Catholics, for instance, Hans Salat of Lucern or the convert Johann Engerd, were also not behindhand in this respect.... The preachers, however, were always intent on egging them on to yet worse attacks.”[1145]

The manner in which Luther in his polemics treated his opponents, wrote Döllinger in his “Sketch of Luther,” “is really quite unparalleled. He never displays any of that kindly charity, which, while hating the error, seeks to win over those who err; on the contrary, with him all is abuse and anger, defiance and contemptuous scorn voiced in a tempest of invective, often of a most personal and vulgar kind.... It is quite wrong to say that Luther in this respect merely followed in the wake of his contemporaries; this is clear enough to everyone familiar with the literature of that age and the one which preceded it; the virulence of Luther’s writings astonished everybody; those who did not owe him allegiance were not slow to express their amazement, to blame him and to emphasise the harmful effects of these outbursts of abuse, whilst his disciples and admirers were wont to appeal to Luther’s ‘heroic spirit’ which lifted him above the common herd and, as it were, dispensed him from the observance of the moral law and allowed him to say things that would have been immoral and criminal in others.”[1146]

Especially his obscene abuse of the Pope did those of Luther’s contemporaries who remained faithful to the Church brand as wicked, immoral and altogether unchristian. “What ears can listen to these words without being offended?” wrote Emser, “or who is the pious Christian who is not cut to the quick by this cruel insult and blasphemy offered to the vicar of Christ? Is this sort of thing Christian or Evangelical?”[1147]

_Protestant Opinions Old and New._

Erasmus’s complaints concerning Luther’s abusiveness were re-echoed, though with bated breath, by those of the new faith whose passion had not entirely carried them away. The great scholar, speaking of Luther’s slanders on him and his faith, had even said that they were such as to compel a reasonable reader to come to the conclusion that he was either completely blinded by hate, or suffering from some mental malady, or else possessed by the devil.[1148] Many of Luther’s own party agreed with Erasmus, at any rate when he wrote: “This unbridled abuse showered upon all, poisons the reader’s mind, particularly in the case of the uneducated, and can promote only anger and dissension.”[1149]

The Protestant theologians of Switzerland were much shocked by Luther’s ways. To the complaints already quoted from their letters and writings may be added the following utterances of Zwingli’s successor, Heinrich Bullinger, who likewise judged Luther’s offensive tone to be quite without parallel: Most of Luther’s books “are cast in such a mould as to give grievous scandal to many simple folk, so that they become suspicious of the Evangelical cause as a whole.... His writings are for the most part nothing but invective and abuse.... He sends to the devil all who do not at once side with him. Thus all his censure is imbued with hostility and contains little that is friendly or fatherly.” Seeing that the world already teems with abuse and curses, Bullinger thinks that it would better befit Luther “to be the salt” and to strive to mend matters, instead of which he only makes bad worse and incites his preachers to “abuse and blaspheme.” “For there are far too many preachers who have sought and found in Luther’s books a load of bad words.... From them we hear of nothing but of fanatics, rotters, Sacramentarians, foes of the Sacrament, blasphemers, scoundrels, hypocrites, rebels, devils, heretics and endless things of the like.... And this, too, is praised by many [who say]: Why, even Luther, the Prophet and Apostle of the Germans, does the same!”[1150]

Of Luther’s “Schem Hamphoras” Bullinger wrote: “Were it written, not by a famous pastor of souls, but by a swine-herd,” it would still be hard to excuse.[1151] In a writing to Bucer, Bullinger also protested against endangering the Evangel by such unexampled abuse and invective. If no one could stop Luther then the Papists were right when they said of him, and the preachers who followed in his footsteps, that they were no “Evangelists, but rather scolding, foul-mouthed buffoons.”[1152]

In answer to such complaints Martin Bucer wrote to Bullinger admitting the existence of grievous shortcomings, but setting against it Luther’s greatness as evinced in the admiration he called forth. The party interests of the Evangel and his hatred of the Papal Antichrist made him to regard as merely human in Luther, frailties which to others were a clear proof of his lack of a Divine mission. As Bucer puts it: “I am willing to admit what you say of Luther’s venomous discourses and writings. Oh, that I could only change his ways.... But the fellow allows himself to be carried away by the storm that rages within him so that no one can stop him. It is God, however, Who makes use of him to proclaim His Evangel and to overthrow Antichrist.... He has made Luther to be so greatly respected in so many Churches that no one thinks of opposing him, still less of removing him from his position. Most people are proud of him, even those whom he does not acknowledge as his followers; many admire and copy his faults rather than his virtues; but huge indeed is the multitude of faithful who revere him as the Apostle of Christ.... I too give him the first place in the sacred ministry. It is true there is much about him that is human, but who is there who displays nothing but what is Divine?” In spite of all he was a great tool of God (“_admirandum organum Dei pro salute populi Dei_”); such was the opinion of all pious and learned men who really knew him.[1153]

Yet Bucer had some strong things to say to Landgrave Philip of Hesse, regarding Luther’s addiction to abuse. To try and persuade him to deal courteously with his foes, particularly with the Zürichers after their “mistaken booklet,” so Bucer writes to the Prince, “would be like trying to put out a fire with oil. If Master Philip and I--who have kept rigidly and loyally to the Concord--succeed in turning away the man’s wrath from ourselves, then we shall esteem ourselves lucky.” The “foolhardiness” of the Zürichers has “so enraged him, that even Emperors, though they should be good Evangelicals, would find it hard to pacify him.” “No one has ever got the better of Dr. Luther in invective.”[1154]

Fresh light is thrown on the psychological side of Luther’s controversial methods when we bring together those utterances in which his sense of his own greatness finds expression. We must observe a little more closely Luther’s inner thoughts and feelings from the standpoint of his own ideal.

4. Luther on his own Greatness and Superiority to Criticism The art of “Rhetoric”

Characteristic utterances of Luther’s regarding his own gifts and excellencies, the wisdom and courage displayed in his undertaking and the important place he would occupy in history as the discoverer and proclaimer of the Evangelical truth, are to be met with in such plenty, both in his works and in the authentic notes of his conversations, that we have merely to select some of the most striking and bring them together. They form a link connecting his whole public career; he never ceased to regard all his labours from the point of view of his Divine mission, and what he says merely varies in tone and colour with the progress which took place in his work as time went on.

It is true that he knew perfectly well that it was impossible to figure a Divine mission without the pediment and shield of humility. How indeed could those words of profound humility, so frequent with St. Paul, have rung in Luther’s ears without finding some echo? Hence we find Luther, too, from time to time making such his own; and this he did, not out of mere hypocrisy, but from a real wish to identify his feelings with those of the Apostle; in almost every instance, however, his egotism destroys any good impulse and drives him in the opposite direction.

Luther’s confessions of his faults and general unworthiness are often quite impressive. We may notice that such were not unfrequently made to persons of influence, to Princes and exalted patrons on whom his success depended, and whom he hoped thereby to dispose favourably; others, however, are the natural, communicative outpourings of that “colossal frankness”--as it has been termed--which posterity has to thank for its knowledge of so many of Luther’s foibles. In his conversations we sometimes find him speaking slightingly of himself, for instance, when he says: “Philip is of a better brand than I. He fights and teaches; I am more of a rhetorician or gossip.”[1155]

A passage frequently quoted by Luther’s admirers in proof of his humility is that which occurs in his preface to the “Psalter” published by Eobanus Hessus. The Psalms, he says, had been his school from his youth upwards. “While unwilling to put my gifts before those of others, I may yet boast with a holy presumption, that I would not, as they say, for all the thrones and kingdoms of the world, forgo the benefits, that, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, I have derived from lingering and meditating on the Psalms.” He was not going to hide the gifts he had received from God, and in Him he would be proud, albeit in himself he found reasons enough to make him humble; he took less pleasure in his own German Psalter than in that of Eobanus, “but all to the honour and glory of God, to Whom be praise for ever and ever.”[1156]

In order to know Luther as he really was we should observe him amongst his pupils at Wittenberg, for instance, as he left the Schlosskirche after one of his powerful sermons to the people, and familiarly addressed those who pressed about him on the steps of the church. There were the burghers and students whose faults he had just been scourging; the theologians of his circle crowding with pride around their master; the lawyers, privy councillors and Court officials in the background, probably grumbling under their breath at Luther’s peculiarities and harsh words. His friends wish him many years of health and strength that he may continue his great work in the pulpit and press; he, on the other hand, thinks only of death; he insists on speaking of his Last Will and Testament, of the chances of his cause, of his enemies and of the threatened Council which he so dreaded.[1157]