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Maim Lib.
HISTOR/
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THE LIFE ANI> LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER
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Riverside Popular Biographies
THE
LIFE AND LETTEKS OF
MARTIN LUTHER
BY
PRESERVED SMITH, Ph.D.
1/
\^ " Nothing extennate,
Nor set down anght in malice."
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
<Cbe Hfbetj^be pct^^ Cambribge
1914
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COPYRIORT, 191 1, BY PRSSBRVED SMITH ALL RIGHTS RJCSBRVBD
Published May igii
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TO MY PARENTS
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300112
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The last word on a live subject is never said. As an immense Tolume of work on Luther continues to pour from the press, I propose, in the immediately following pages, to give some ac- count of the most important and pertinent literature produced since this biography first went to press.
The most striking recent contribution to the subject, both on account of its size and of the altercation it has aroused, is the biography, in three volumes and 2600 lexicon-octavo pages, by Professor Hartmann Grisar, S.J. As his interest centers in the character of the Reformer and the moral effect of his work, the Catholic scholar, assuming the role of prosecuting attorney, labors, with much learning and a real intention of doing justice, to prove that both were bad. Whereas the specialist may learn much from Grisar, his whole point of view, as well as that taken by most of his Protestant critics, is foreign to the impartial investigator.
More than a dozen volumes, many of them bringing fresh light, have been added to the Weimar edition of Luther's works. Per- haps the most interesting are those devoted to the table-talk. Much new material, not inferior in value to that already known, has been discovered, and bears out the opinion of Froude that the table-talk is ^^ one of the most brilliant books in the world ... as full of matter as Shakespeare's plays." In order to make these newly published conversations of Luther accessible to the English-speaking public, a translation of them is now being executed and may be expected shortly to appear.
Three more volumes of the letters in the Enders-Kawerau edition have come out. An English version of the correspond- ence, containing also letters by Luther's contemporaries on him and his movement, is now in course of publication.^
* Luther's Corregpondence and Other Contemporary Letters^ translated and edited hy Preserved Smith, vol, i, 1507-1521, Philadelphia, 1913. The second and third Yolnmes, completing the whole, may be expected before the centenary of 1017.
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Of Luther's early life and development prior to 1517 I have now arrived at a somewhat different conception from that set forth in the present biography.^ Sturdy as was the Saxon's constitution, a neurotic vein may be detected in his violence of language, in his obsession by the devil, and, one is tempted to add, in that conception of God as a cruel and capricious tyrant, which he himself confessed was repugnant to natural feeling.^ By the application of Sigismund Freud's psycho - analytic method, much of this diathesis may be explained as rooted in Luther's heredity and childish experiences. A pathological exag- geration is also exhibited in the struggle, during the first ten years in the friary, with what he himself called ^^ the invincible concupiscence " of the flesh. Kegarding not only overt acts ot unchastity, but also natural desire itself, as wicked, and finding that by no means could he rid himself of this desire, he came to that conclusion as to the total impotence and bondage of the will, which lay at the basis of his most famous doctrine. His insight into the worthlessness of man's own efforts, and par- ticularly of the righteousness of works prescribed by the Church, was sharpened by a brisk quarrel with the " observants," i.e., that faction of his own order which laid most stress on the punctilio of the cloister. For a long time, however, he despaired of finding the true road to salvation, and believed himself rep- robate. The answer to his search, suggested by the German mystics, came to him about 1515 ^ with such force that he be-
^ ** Luther's Deyelopment in the Light of Psyoho-AnalynB," American Journal of Psychology y Jiily, 1913. *' Luther's Deyelopment of the Doctrine of Justifica- tion by Faith only," Harvard Theological Review^ October, 1913. The first article has been criticized in the Historische Zeitschrift and in the Archiv/ur Reformations" geschichte, but the legitimacy of the psycho-analytic method is now recognized in certain theological qnarteis. Cf . J. H. Schnlz in Theologische Liter aturzeitung, 1914, p. 36 : *' Fiir die Erforschung einzelner religionspsychologisch oder historisch bedentsamer Erscheinnngen oder Personlichkeiten kann die psychoanalytische Betrachtnng^weise anregend wirken."
^ Infra, p. 208, and Tischreden, Weimar, i, no. 1193 : *^ Erasmus' thought is the greatest and subtlest of all temptations, the belief, namely, that God is unjust.'' He called it ** Erasmus' thought " because Erasmus had said that if Qtod. were such as Luther represeni^d him, damning men for acts they could not help, he would be unjust.
^ Not in 1508, as stated below, p. 15. The best recent works on this subject, besides Grisar, are : O. Soheel: Dohumente zu Luthers Entwiddung, 1911 ; K. A*
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lieved it to be a direct revelation of the Holy Ghost. Its essence was that a man could be saved only by perfect self-surrender, by pure passivity in God's hands, by an entire reliance on him ; for this, more than mere belief, constituted the ^^ faith," justifi- cation by which has always been counted the cardinal doctrine of Protestants.
The effect of this discovery in his own life was almost instan- taneous. Forthwith he commenced purging his order and his uni- versity, and presently protested against the abuses of the Church so vigorously as to bring himself into collision with her repre- sentatives, and soon to cause him to be summoned before the Diet at Worms. The importance of this crisis in European politics has been put in strong light by two recent books.^ Schubert has shown that the Pope offered Frederic of Saxony the imperial crown in exchange for the surrender of Luther — an insufficient bribe. When Charles of Spain was elected, his agents swore to a capitulation, drawn up, July 3, 1519, with Luther in mind, that no German should be condemned unheard; and, in fact, on the very day on which Charles decided to hold his first Diet he agreed to allow the accused heretic to appear before it. When he actually did come to the bar of this high tri- bunal, his condemnation (as is set forth by Kalkoff) had already been drafted by Aleander as early as December, 1520, and, under the name of the " Edict of Worms," was forced through the Diet by intrigue and imperial influence against the wishes of the majority of its members.
Forced by the ban into hiding at the Wartburg, Luther began his greatest work, the translation of the Bible. It has recently been asserted that this was but a revision of previous German versions,^ but the reasons given for this opini<jn are not convinc- ing. In the l^ew Testament, at least, if he leaned too heavily
Meissinger : Luthers Exegese in derFrUhzeity 1911 ; A. Humbert: Les Origines de la ihiologie modeme, 1911 ; W. Kobler : " Luther bis 1521," in Pflugk-Harttung's Im Morgenrot der Reformation, 1912.
1 H. V. Schubert: Die Vorgeschichte der Berufung Luthers aufden Beichstag zu Worms {Sitzungsberichte d. heidelberger Akademie, 1912, vi); P. Kalkoff : JDte Entstehung des Wormser Edikts, 1913.
2 Yedder : The German Beformation, 1914 ; W. W. Florer : Luther'^s Use of pre- Lutheran'Versions of the Bible, Anne Arbor, 1913.
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X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
on the authority of any predecessor, it was on the Latin trans- lation pubished by Erasmus in the second edition of the Greek text (1519). The sole evidence of the use of earlier versions is found in the slight resemblances between them and Lather's Bible. There is no direct testimony that the Reformer knew previous translations, and this is the more remarkable now that the minutes of the proceedings of his commission for revising his first edition have been published.^ They put in a stronger light than ever the extreme care with which he worked, and also the ineradicable subjectivity of his attitude. He knew no interpretation, no exegesis whatever, unconditioned by prac- tical interests, the chief of which was the confutation of his opponents.
On one point there is no difference of opinion, the remarkable and immediate success of the work. A wide examination ^ of contemporary literature has shown that by 1526, three fourths of the quotations from the New Testament in German were from Luther's version. The Catholics paid it the sincere compliment of plagiarism — for the rapidly executed version of Emser was but a light revision of his opponent's work. Only the Zwing- lians for a time stood aloof.
Luther's inconsistency in claiming for the Bible an infallible authority, and at the same time in criticizing and rejecting parts of it himself, has been noted below (p. 267y.). For the former, from his own day to this, Luther has been praised and followed ; for the latter he has frequently been blamed. And yet] there is no^ doubt that the second position is the rational and progressive one ; whereas the first has been responsible for much with which Protestantism may justly be blamed. Not only in rejecting certain texts was he inconsistent, but in relying solely o^ tradition in defending usages, such as the observance of Sunday instead of Saturday, and infant baptism, for which no support can be found in Scripture. But his self-contradic- tions hurt him less than his consistencies ; for it was on the au-
^ Deutsche Bibel, Weimar, iii, 1911. There were three reyisionsj 1581, 1534, and 1539, not one, as stated below, p. 264.
3 H. Zerener : Studien uber dcLs beginnende Eindringen der lutherischen Bihd- ubersetzung in die deutsche Literature 1911. %
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thority of the Bible that he opposed the scientific work of other men, and also justified two or three immoral principles. Coper- nicus he called a great big fool for thinking he knew more than the inspired writers about the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. Erasmus he charged with atheism for applying sound critical principles to the elucidation of the Greek Testament. Polygamy and even concubinage^ he tolerated on the ground that they were practiced by the patriarchs and not forbidden by the apos- tles. Lying in a pious cause he claimed was sanctioned by the example of Christ.^ For the horrible cruelties of persecution, he, and still more his followers, found ample warrant in the wars of the Israelites.
All ^his should serve to remind us that it Is a momentous error to suppose that Luther and we have lived in the same era of civilization.^ Here, as so often, our thought has been the slave of an outworn terminology. Because it has for long been the fashion to divide the history of the world since the fall of Rome into two epochs, " medidBval " and " modem," we perforce assume that if Luther was not medlseval he must have been almost contemporary with us; or, on the other hand, if it Is shown that he differed widely from twentieth-century standards, that he must have lived, intellectually, in the dark ages. It is truer to see in the last five hundred years two distinct eras, differing as much from each other as the former differed from the Middle Ages proper. It would be well if we had some con- venient name, such as the " Age of Transition," for the period of Renaissance and Reformation, covering roughly the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, and reserved the term " modern " exclusively for the last two hundred years, heralded by the " enlightenment " of the " philosophers " and the eman- cipation of the American and French Revolutions. Let us
^ On polygamy of. infra, index. On concubinage, Lnther's " Sermon on Mar- riage," 1522, Weimar, x, part ii, p. 290 : " Will die Frau nicht [die eheliohe Pflicl?t zahlen] so komme die Magd."
2 Infra, p. 383, n. 4.
#• On Lnther's place in history and thonght, recent works are : E. Troeltsch : Protestantism and Progress, 1912; H. S. Chamberlain :'i^oumf actons of the Nine- teenth Century, 1911 (in parts) ; A. V. Miiller : Luther s theologische Quellen, 1912 j A. C. McGiffert: Protestant Thought before Kant, 1911.
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examine briefly the points in which Luther and his world dif- fered, first, from modem times, and, secondly, from the Middle
In the first place the Eeformation did not claim to be an appeal to reason, or in any sense a progressive movement. ^^ We know," said the Eeformer, '' that Keason is the Devil's harlot, who can do nothing but slander and harm all that God says and does." ^ Protestant and Catholic alike have been consistently opposed to the march of improvement, be it scientific or social. Indeed) the direct influence of the Protestant revolt was at first disastrous to the dawn of enlightenment. We cannot quite agree with Nietzsche that ^^ the Eeformation was a reaction of spirits behind the times, against the Italian Eenaissance,"^ but we must recognize that the two movements were antagonistic in as many points as those in which they were united, and that the spirit of the Kenaissance passed rather into the Church of Kome than into those of Wittenberg and Geneva.^ If modern Pro- testantism has shown greater hospitality to science and philoso- phy than has Catholicism, the reverse was true of the earlier centuries. In short, " Luther's most regrettable limitation was that he neither absorbed the cultural elements offered by his time, nor recognized the right and duty of free research." *
Gibbon observed long ago that if a " philosopher " studied the dogmas of the Keformed Churches, he would be astonished not by what they rejected, but by the amount they kept. Even the existence of a personal, ethical God, and of u future life, though still commonly believed, can no longer be postulated as they were by the Reformers. But further than this, they took almost entire the body of Catholic dogma, the Trinity, the miracles and resurrection of Christ, the atonement, and many other mysteries. The one trenchant reform made by Luther in tjie field of pure dogma, that of the sacramental system of the Church, was not due to his special enlightenment, but ^^ because
1 Weimar, xviii, 164. Cf. Weimar, xlyii, 474.
2 Menchliches, AUzumenchlickes, 1878, p. 200.
^ E. Troeltsch : ^^ Kenaissance und Kef ormation,'' Historische Zeitschrtft, ex, 519^, 1913. ^ A. Harnack : Dogmengeschichte *, iii, 1910, p. 816.
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xiii
of his inner experience that where * grace ' does not endow the soul with God, the sacraments are an illusion." ^
In harmony with this dogmatic conservatism, Luther took over almost unchanged the prevalent conception of society, which with him, as with the Middle Ages, remained essentially that of an authoritative ecclesiastical civilization. His famous pamphlet on The Liberty of a Christian Man sets forth an idea of free- dom remote from our own. With us liberty means not only the relaxation of external restraint upon the conscience, but the right to range untrammeled through all fields of culture, and the joy in doing so. With Luther a Christian was ^^ the most free lord of all " simply because no amount of force could com- pel him to renounce his faith ; his liberty was, like that of the Stoic, mere indifference to the world.
For political equality and for social reform as such Luther never cared at all. When in 1525 the serfs demanded their enfranchisement, the Keformer followed St. Paul (1 Cor. vn, 20 y.) in' denying them this right. Hid hatred and distrust of the common people were such that, notwithstanding his opinion of princes as usually ** the biggest fools and worst rascals on earth," he preferred despotism to democracy. " The princes of the world," he once said, '^ are gods ; the common people are Satan." ^ Again he remarked that he would sooner bear with a government which did wrong than with a people which did right,^ In fact the "divine right of kings" found a strong support in Lutheranism. Popular government first arose in England and America under Calvinism, and in France under Catholicism.
The Wittenberg professor never doubted the right and duty of the State to persecute for heresy. While still fighting for the opportunity to express his own opinions, indeed, he took a liberal view, and one of his early propositions condemned by the bull Exsurge Domine^ was that it was contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit to put heretics to death. Again in 1525 he said: " The government shall not interfere ; a man may teach and believe what he likes, be it gospel or lies." * But a very few years
1 A. Hamack: What is Christianity f p. 279.
2 Tischreden, Weimar, i, 171.
» Werke, Erlangen, vol. 50, p» 294. * Weimar, xriii, 298/.
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xiv PBEFACE TO THE 5EC0NP EDITION
of success convinced him and Melanchthon of the untenability of this attitude. In 1529, with the consent of the Elector John and of Melanchthon, who were present, an imperial edict was passed at Spires condemning Anabaptists to death. In pursu- ance of this law, a regular inquisition was established in Saxony, with the ^^ gentle " Melanchthon at its head, and a hideous per- secution began.^ In a short time several of the poor noncon- formists were put to death, and many others imprisoned for long terms. Melanchthon wrote a paper to justify this course ; this he did by asking, ^* Why should we pity such men more than does God? " who, it was believed, sent them to eternal torment for their opinions. Luther signed this document,^ with a post- script showing that he was a little sorry for the poor people ; about the same time, in a commentary on the Eighty-second Psalm,^ he expressed equally intolerant ideas. According to this the government should put to death : 1. All heretics who are seditious, anarchical, or who preach against private property. 2. *^ Those who teach against a manifest article of the faith, clearly grounded in Scripture, and believed throughout Chris- tendom, like the articles children learn in the creed ; as, for ex- ample, if any one should teach that Christ was not God but a mere man. . . . They should not be tolerated but punished as public blasphemers." 3. If there are two sects within one state, one should yield to the other to avoid conflict. Luther says be would advise his own followers to yield to the Catholics in such a case, but conversely, if Catholics in a Lutheran state refused to be convinced, they should be chastized. The Reformer contin- ues that a Papist cannot be sure of his faith, and therefore must be punished by those who are certain he errs, just as a murderer should be punished even if he believed that murder was right. Later he said that Jews should be prohibited from the exercise of their religion on pain of death.
It is no wonder that some authorities have seen in the Ref^ ormation an actually retrograde movement in this regard, and have thought that the fanaticism it aroused really sharpened
1 P. Wappler : Die Stdlung Kursachseru und Philipps von Hessen zur Tauferhe- wegung, 1910.
2 Enders, xiv, 129 (1531). « Weimar, xxxi, part i, 208/.
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the persecuting spirit.^ It seems truer to say, however, that the schism created rather fresh opportunity than an increased desire to persecute. When nearly every one conformed there was small possibility of active intolerance, and throughout the Middle Ages the Church had a thousand times exhibited her ruthless cruelty. What made the Kef ormers peculiarly inexcus- able was that they denied to others the very right for which they themselves were fighting.
Turning now to the new in Luther, we must first of all be on our guard against measuring him too exclusively by our contemporary standards. Nothing is more unhistorical than the method, now quite common, of searching the past with the sole idea of unearthing some anticipation of modern thought. Whether sympathetic to us or not, Luther gave to the prob- lems of bis time the accepted and therefore the historically valid answer. Less enlightened than Erasmus, and with less of the truly evangelic spirit, he was, because more suited to ' his time and otherwise more effective, historically greater. And his services to mankind were solid and important. jLip#^^The greatest of these was undoubtedly that he broke the iMV^^Xstrongest tyranny and dissolved the worst monopoly that the world has ever known, that of the Roman Church. Whether the various companies into which the Standard Religion Trust resolved itself were intrinsically better than the original corpo- ration was far less important than the fact that these smaller bodies did effectually, and even in a cut-throat spirit, compete. The pretensions of a single authority to infallibility are plausi- ble ; but two or more churches, each claiming to be the sole purveyor of salvation, and mutually giving each other the lie, must by their very existence arouse skepticism.
Again the Reformation was really a progressive movement, and not, as it claimed to be, mainly the return to an earlier standpoint. Crying " Back ! " the Reformers really went for- ward, simply because they could not, with all their efforts, grasp
^ On Uie subject in general : G. L. Burr : " Anent the Middle Agpes," American Historical Review, 1913, pp. 710-26; N. Panlns : ProtegtarUismus und Toleranx, 1911 ; K. Volker : Toleranz und Intoleranz im Zeitalter der Reformation, 1912 ; F. Rnffini : Religious Liberty, 1912 ; B. Lewin : Luthers Stdlung zu den Juden, 1911.
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the primitive ideas of the Gospel. Protestantism is remote in spirit from the early Church, because the sixteenth century is remote in time from the first. In almost all points Catholicism is nearer to the New Testament than is Protestantism.^ Even the famous ^^sola fide" is less Pauline than Luther supposed, because its main corollary, the antithesis to the sacramental system, would not have occurred to the Tarsian. Another ex- ample is the progressive history of the eucharist. Kecent research has abundantly shown that the theophagy of the New Testament was understood by the early Christians in a far more literal sense than it has ever been since. Transubstan- tiation was not, as generally represented, the gross invention of a superstitious age, interpreting too literally the words : " Take, eat ; this is my body "; rather it was the first attempt to ration- alize that language. In substituting the closely related theory , of consubsantiation, Luther took another step in the same direc- tion, not because he intentionally consulted his senses, — this he passionately deprecated, — but because, without the historical knowledge and imagination to put himself in Paul's place, any movement whatever on his part was bound to be conditioned by the atmosphere of contemporary thought. The final step was taken by Zwingli, in which the original mystery, founded in a forgotten and almost primeval culture, was turned into a simple commemorative rite.
So in other things, Luther was, contrary to his own intention, the father of modern undogmatic Christianity, and through that, to a degree, of modern rationalism. Emerson quite rightly stated that had Luther known his Theses would lead to Boston Unitarianism he would rather have cut off his hand than have posted them. But once the avalanche was started, he was im- potent to stop it. Having pushed men but a little way from the unstable equilibrium of ideal Catholic faith, he put them in a condition necessitating further motion. Indeed, not only was he the spiritual ancestor of many Christian sects which he would have anathematized, but even, to a certain extent, of infidelity. There is a measure of truth in Nietzsche's assertion that the great
1 So Eirsopp Lake, in Tlie Harvard Theological BevteWf 1914, pp. 429, 431 ; G. Santayana: Reason and BtHgion, 1905, 114>24.
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Saxon first began to teach the Germans to be nn-Christlan. On the other hand, it must be recognized that Protestantism has in some cases acted as a vaccination against free thought ; the small dose seasonably administered inoculates against a more for- midable infection, later. Thus Catholic France and Italy have become more skeptical than Protestant Germany, England, and America.
As in Church so in State, Luther was a secularist in spite of himself. In freeing society from the heavy burden of monas- ticism, with its attendant evils of unproductive^ idleness and sterility, he restored to the ^orld energies previously devoted to religion. In declaring that all laymen were priests, he really reduced all priests, with their divine and magical powers, to the rank of laymen. In this also, this unconscious secularization of the ideal, Wittenberg stood farther from Galilee than did Rome. It is the Founder of Christianity who bids us hate father and mother, wife and child for his sake; who points the way to celi- bacy by his example and his approbation of men *^ who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake " ; who finds the poor blessed and the rich unable to enter God's king- dom ; who inculcates humility and lives rather for contempla- tion and prayer than for active life and learning. In all this it is St. Francis who is his truest disciple, and the monastic ideal which is like that of Jesus, unworldly, disenchanted, ascetic. . Luther and bis followers, on the contrary, are convinced of the importance of success and prosperity ; they abominate the disreputable ; think of contemplation as idleness, of solitude as selfishness, and of poverty as a punishment. Married and industrial life i& typically godly. Calvinism furnished the moral sanction for capitalism ; the Protestant theologian Richard Bax- ter declared that in neglecting the opportunity to make money a man was guilty of a sin. This position may be defended on many grounds, as common sense or as conducive to the best interests of society ; but it is not the ethics of the Gospel. Just as on the intellectual side Protestantism approaches a pious skepticism, so on the ethical side it has been reduced to the sanctimonious authorization for an extremely materialistic civi- lization.
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After all, LotiierV strongest appeal tans is bis own person- ality. His true originality is his character, Hs greatest work his life, his most remarkable achieyement himself.
P. S.
MoBBiSYiLLB, YEBHOirr, July 22, 1914
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It can hardly be denied that the men who have most changed history have been the great religious leaders. ^^ Priest, Teacher/' says Carlyle, *' whatsoever we can fancy to reside in man, em- bodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with con- stant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we are to do." Among the great prophets, and, with the possible exception of Calvin, the last of world-wide importance, Martin Luther has taken his place. His career marks the beginning of the present epoch, for it is safe to say that every man in western Europe and in America is leading a different life to-day from what he would have led, and is another person altogether from what he would have been, had Martin Luther not lived. For the most important fact in modem history is undoubtedly the great schism of which he was the author, the consequences of which are still unfolding and will continue to unfold for many a century to come. In saying this we do not attribute to him the sole re- sponsibility for the revolt from Bome. The study of history, as o^ evolution in other forms, has shown that there are no abrupt changes, — appearances to the contrary, — and that one epoch follows another as naturally and with as gradual a development as one season follows another in the year. In a sense the Pro- testant revolt, and the larger movement of which it was but the chief symptom, the expansion of the human mind, was inevit- able. In another sense, equally true, it was the courage and genius of a great man which made it possible. If some such crisis was inevitable, he at least determined its time and to a large extent its direction. Granting, as axiomatic, that essential factors of the movement are to be found in the social, political,' and cultural conditions of the age, and in the work of prede- cessors and followers, in short, in the environment which alone made Luther's lif ework possible, there must still remain a very large element due directly and solely to his personality.
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The present work aims to explain that personality; to show him in the setting of his age ; to indicate what part of his work is to be attributed to his inheritance and to the events of the time, but especially to reveal that part of the man which seems, at least, to be explicable by neither heredity nor environment, and to be more important than either, the character, or individ- uality.
A new biography of Luther, however, requires more apology than is to be found merely in the intrinsic interest of the sub- ject. A glance at the catalogue of almost any great library — that of the British Museum for instance — will show that more has been written about Luther than about any man, save one, who ever lived. Why bring another coal to this Newcastle ?
One main reason is to be found in the extraordinarily rapid advance of recent research, which, within the last ten, and still more, of course, within the last twenty years, has greatly changed our knowledge of the man. For example, the publica- tion, in 1908, of the long lost Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans has revolutionized our conception of the Reformer's early development; the opening of the Vatican Archives by the late Pope, by which many important documents were first (1904) brought to light, has at last revealed the true history of the legal process taken against the heretic by the Curia ; the researches of Dr. Kroker have but lately (1906) enabled us to speak with precision of the early life of Catharine von Bora; those of Dr. Bockwell (1904) have performed a similar service for an important incident in Luther's life. Again, the great edition of Luther's Works published at Weimar, and of the letters by Dr. Enders and Professor Kawerau, both of which are still in progress, have now made possible a more scientific study of his most important works. A few random instances, however, can give no adequate idea of the number of details, not to mention larger matters, which have first been revealed within the last decade. I have aimed to gather up, correlate, and present the results of recent research now scattered through a host of monographs. This has seemed to me the most pressing peed of the present, and I have, therefore, only to a limited extent used unpy^blished material. In several points, however.
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PREFACE xxi
my own studies have led me to diffeoent conclusions from those commonly held, and I venture to hope that this feature of the book will not be without value to specialists.
In another respect the present work undertakes to present Luther to English readers from a standpoint different to that from which he is usually approached. I have endeavored to re- veal him as a great character rather than as a great theologian. In order to do this I have given copious extracts from his table- talk and letters, those pregnant documents in which he unlocks his heart. No such self -revelation as is found in them exists else- where. Neither Pepys, nor Cellini, nor Bousseau has told us as much about his real self as has Luther about himself. Every trait of character is revealed : the indomitable will, *^ and cour- age never to submit or yield," the loyalty to conscience, the warm heart, the overflowing humor, the wonderful gift of seeing the essence of things and of expressing what he saw, and also the vehement temper and occasional coarseness of a rugged peasant nature. In the tremulous tone of the first epistles is reflected the anguish of a soul tortured by doubt and despair ; later the writer tells with graphic force of the momentous debate at Leipsic ; again, in the same hour in which he stood before the Emperor and Diet at Worms, asked to recant and expecting death if he did not, he writes a friend that he will never take back one jot or tittle. The letters from the Wart- burg and Feste Coburg breathe the author's fresh, almost idyl- lic communion with nature ; in the table-talk it is now the warm family affection which charms, now the irrepressible, rollicking joviality which bursts forth. The man's faults, too, stand in his unconscious autobiography, neither dissembled nor attesuated. Two blunders, his incitement to bloody reprisals against the re- bellious peasants and his acquiescence in the bigamy of Philip of Hesse, blunders which his enemies called crimes, are frankly told in all the hideousness of their conception and consequences. It is, moreover, plain to the reader of the letters and table-talk that Luther was often in language and sometimes in thought the child of a coarse age. But of him it is especially true that to understand all is to pardon all. Through all his mistakes, and worse, he emerges a good and conscientious as well as a very
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xxii PREFACE
great man : a son of thunder calling down fire from heaTen ; a Titan hurling Pelion upon Ossa against the hostile gods.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help I have received from many quarters. Professor Adolph Harnack has personally as- sisted my researches in the Berlin Boyal Library. To Dr. Cowley and Professor Beginald Lane Poole I am indebted for special facilities in the use of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Dr. Ernest Kroker, of Leipsic, has given me several valuable sug- gestions. Principal J. Estlin Carpenter, of Manchester College, Oxford, has kindly placed at my disposal the excellent collection of Lutherana made by the late Dr. Beard, whose History of the Bef ormation to the Diet of Worms, unfortunately left unfinished at his death (1888), is a well-known contribution to the subject. My friend Dr. David Saville Muzzy, of New York, has kindly revised the chapter on the Peasants' Revolt; Professor B. L. Poole, and Mr. Percy S. Allen, Fellow of Merton College, Ox- ford, have done the same for the chapter on Luther and Henry VIII as it originally appeared in the English Historical Hemew. My friend. Professor Herbert P. Gallinger, of Amherst, has read the proofs. I feel under especial obligations toProf essor Gustav Kawerau, of Berlin, who, during my long stay ati the Prussian capital, with the greatest possible kindness placed at my disposal his rare books and manuscripts and his more valu- able time. To all these gentlemen I tender my warmest thanks. Last, but not least in love, I must acknowledge the help received in my own family. My father, the Rev. Dr. Henry Preserved Smith, has read the whole manuscript, and thus given me the benefit of his lifelong studies in divinity and experience as a writer. My sister, Miss Winifred Smith, and my wife have also aided me with criticism and suggestion.
P. S.
Pabis, May 16, 1910.
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LIST OF LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES USED IN THE PREPARATION OF TIHS WORK
ENGLAND
London : British Museum, and Dr. Williams's Library. OxFOBD : Bodleian Library.
GERMANY
Beblin : KOnigliche Bibliothek, Universitiltsbibliothek, and private
library of Professor Gustav Kawerau. Leipsig : Universit&tsbibliothek and Stadtbibliothek. Mabbubg : State Archives and Universit&tsbibliothek.
FRANCE
Paris: Biblioth^que Nationale, Bibliothbque de Sainte-Genevi^ve, Biblioth^que Mazarine, Biblioth^que de la Sorbonne, Biblioth^ue de la Faculty Protestante.
UNITED STATES Boston : Public Library. Cambridge : Harvard University Library. New York : Columbia University, Union Seminary, Astor and Lenox
Libraries. Washington : Congressional Library.
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CONTENTS
J
y l. Childhood and Student Life. 148^1505 1
i n. The Monk. 1605-1612 8
m. The Joubnet to Rome. October, 1610-Februabt, 1611 16
lY. The Professor. 1612-1617 20
y "/v. The' Indulgence Controversy. 1617-1619 36
VL The Leipsic Debate. 1619 58
Vn. The Patriot. 1619-1620 69
YIII. The Address to the German Nobilitt, The Babylon- ian Caftiyitt of the Church, and The Freedom
of a Christian Man. 1520 76
4 IX. The Burninq of the Canon Law and of the Pope's
Bull. 1620 95
-^ X. The Diet of Worms. 1521 103
XL The Wartburg. May 4, 1521-March 1, 1622 .... 121 XIL The Wittenberg Revolution and the Return from
Tta! Wartburg. 1621-1522 135
XIII. Carlstadt and MGnzer. 1522-1525 147
/XIV. The Peasants' Revolt. 1525 157
y\ XV. Catharine von Bora 168
XVI. Private Life. 1522-1531 182
>^XVIL Henry VIII 192
jixVIIL ERASBfus .199
XIX. German Politics. 1522-1529 214
XX. Church Building 229
XXI. Ulrich Zwingli ... 238
XXII. Feste Coburg and the Diet of Augsburg. 1530 . . 247
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XXVI CONTENTS
XXm. The German Bible 263
XXIY. The Religious Peace of Nubehberq. 1532 . • . 271
XXV. The Church Militant 279
XXVI. The Wittenberg Agreement. 1636 288
XXVn. Belations with France, England, Matence and
Albertine Saxont 296
XXVUL The League of Schmalkalden. 1535-1539 .... 303
XXIX. Character and Habits 316
XXX. At Work 331
XXXL Religion and Culture 336
XXXn. The Luther Family 351
XXXni. Domestic Economy 363
XXXIV. The Bigamy of Philip of Hesse. 1540 373
XXXV. Catholic and Protestant. 1539-1546 387
XXXVI. Lutheran and Sacramentarian. 1539-1546 . . . 402 XXXVIL Death 409
EPILOGUE. The Last Years and Death of Luther's Wife • 424
APPENDIX
I. Chronological Tables 429
n. Bibliography, with References 433
m. Documents 471
INDEX 477
<
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THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF