of seventeen students. Now, his father thought, his son would surely pursue the study of law.
Before continuing his education much further, Luther visited his home for a few days. On his return trip he was overtaken by a violent electrical storm, during which he promised his patron saint he would become a monk. This he did without further hesitancy, although against his father’s wish, on July 16, 1505, when he entered a monastery of the Augustinian order.
It is not quite clear why he took this step, but a reason may be seen in the turmoils of his troubled heart. He did not do it because of any specific sin, but because of a fear that Heaven could not be appeased except by a lifetime of denial and good works. His parents, pious Catholics, had imbued his mind with all the Christian teachings of which they were capable. It must, however, be kept in mind that up to the age of twenty he had not seen a Bible.
The monastery he selected had a high reputation for piety; it stanchly supported the church and all its traditions. In fact, no monastery in all Germany held a comparable rank. Luther began to work zealously to save his soul by daily fasting, prayers, and scourging. Menial tasks became a pleasure for the reason that when they were completed he had access to a Latin translation of the Bible, chained to a desk. This the monks unloosed for his benefit. When he reached the age of twenty-three, his superiors considered him the perfect example of a pious monk, and in 1507 the monastery officials ordained him as a priest.
The following year Dr. Staupitz, head of the Augustinian order in Germany and dean of the theological faculty at Wittenberg University, called Luther to begin his teaching at that institution. This university had been founded in 1502 by Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, and hence did not come under church control, a circumstance which helped
immeasurably when once the Beformation began.
By 1508 Luther had the distinction of being the most learned man in the Augustinian order, and two years later Wittenberg listed him as its highest trained theologian. Yet his soul had found no rest! Devoutly and intensely he kept on studying the Scriptures, so much so that it was later said of
him that he knew from memory every verse in the Bible and also where each was to be found. Gradually the idea of justification by faith, the cornerstone of the Lutheran bdief, began to assume meaning.
In October of 1512 the University of Wittenberg conferred upon him the degree of doctor of theology. The year preceding he had made his
memorable trip to Rome, where
“the terrible corruption,..the wholesale lust, cupidity, pomp and vanity, ambition and sacrilege” (quoted by Frantz Funck-Brentano in Luther, page 19),
filled him with doubt and disappointment. In 1515 he became provincial vicar of Meissen and Thuringia, which entailed, among other duties, the supervision of eleven convents. His capacity and zeal for work seemed to be endless. During Lent in 1517, besides his university lectures, he delivered two sermons daily in which his central theme was that of justification by faith.
The first step leading to an open break with the church was his
denouncement of Tetzel’s sale of indulgences. Indulgences had been sold for at least two centuries before the Reformation started, but never
previously had they been bent to the shameful abuse of money raising. At the moment funds were needed to rebuild St. Peter’s Church at Rome. In order to get these funds, the people were promised remission for sins they had not yet committed, their relatives were assured release from
purgatory, and divers other equally absurd commitments were made if the people would but buy the indulgences. A couplet perhaps erroneously ascribed to Tetzel summed up his doctrine:
Sobald das Geld im Kasten klingt Die Seele aus dem Fegfeur springt!
(“The moment the money rattles into the box, the soul [for whom it was given] escapes from purgatory.”) Quoted and translated by Frantz Funck-Brentano, Luther, page 61.
To bring before his university colleagues material for discussion and debate, Luther nailed ninety-five theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, October 31, 1517, an important date in religious history. In these theses Luther questioned the efficacy of indulgences and the
authority of the pope, and stated that man is saved by faith and not by works. He had no thought that the pope would ever hear about these topics; they were intended solely as an exercise in polemics.
In a short time these theses had been translated and spread all over the country. Rumor of growing differences of opinion and clashes of argument began to reach Rome and led to the papal request that Luther appear in that city within sixty days of August 7, 1518. Such a summons was tantamount to condemnation without a trial.
The Germans interpreted the demand that Luther recant without a hearing as an example of Rome’s tyranny. Then suddenly politics entered the scene, and both the university officials and the elector of Saxony objected to Luther’s going to Rome, because, they maintained, Luther should be accorded a hearing, and that on German soil.
Rome, always anxious to get as much money out of German territory as possible, consented to give Luther a hearing at Augsburg by Cardinal Cajetan in October, 1518. Although it was impossible to prove by the Scriptures that what Luther taught was an error, the cardinal told him flatly that either he revoke his position or stay out of his sight. Luther chose to do the latter.
At this time the papacy had not yet awakened to the fact that the cause was not merely Luther’s, but that it involved all Germany. The more intensely the quarrel between the papacy and Luther raged, the farther Luther’s fame spread. Erasmus is reputed to have said to the elector of Saxony: “Luther has committed two faults: He has touched the Pope on his crown and the monks on their bellies.”
During this time Luther’s pen never rested. The people were informed of the issues in the struggle, and by 1520 more than one hundred editions of his works had been taken from door to door by colporteurs. Meanwhile the enrollment at the university where Luther taught increased from year to year.
Then came the eight-day debate at Leipzig between Luther, described as
“so thin and worn that one could count his bones,” and his opponent, Dr.
John Eck, theologian from the University of Ingolstadt. Eck won
technically, but it made Luther the focal point of German discontent and served to combine politics and religion in a common aim.
The debate also served to establish Luther in his own views of Biblical truth. Rapidly his three great Reformation brochures, The Liberty of the Christian Man, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation
Concerning the Reformation of the Christian Commonwealth, and On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church, reached the people.
Quickly and surely Luther was being led to the apex of his quarrel with the church. Dr. Eck had gone to Rome, where he recommended Luther’s
excommunication. The papal bull, giving Luther six months’ grace to recant, was published June 15, 1520, reached Wittenberg October 11, 1520, and was publicly burned by Luther the morning of December 11, before a large and excited crowd of students, townsmen, and university professors.
By this act Luther irrevocably separated himself from Rome, and on January 3, 1521, Pope Leo X published a bull of excommunication against Luther, his works, and all his followers. Charles V, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, although urged by the papacy, as well as by his adviser and confessor, Glapio, who had incited the burning of Luther’s works, to take drastic action against Luther, refrained from doing so, for his political turn of mind indicated to him whereby he might be able to use the whole case as a bargaining element with the pope.
Finally, Elector Frederick of Saxony received the emperor’s promise that Luther would receive a hearing before proceedings would be taken against him, even though he was already under the papal ban. In compliance with this promise Luther received the summons to appear before the Diet of Worms by April 26, 1521. Upon hearing of the emperor’s offer to hear him and that he would not be maltreated, Luther stated that should the summons reach him, he would go even if he were so ill he would need to be carried. He felt that if the emperor called him, the call would be from the Lord. Even on the journey to Worms, when he heard that the emperor had given a command that his books be burned, he stated: “I shall go to Worms even if I were to find as many devils there as there are tiles on the roofs?”
All along his route of travel distinguished men from all walks of life flocked to see him and to meet him personally if possible.
Entering Worms April 16, 1521, he was accompanied by a retinue of one hundred horsemen, and thousands of people crowded the streets to see him. The trumpet from the top of the cathedral tower announced his arrival. On the next day Luther made his first appearance before the diet, made up of two hundred ten high churchmen and nobles of the land. It is said that Luther spoke in tones so low and hesitating that those close to him could hardly hear what he said. When asked whether he would make a full recantation of his writings he countered by a request for more time, and this was granted him until the next day.
After the first day’s session was over, the nobility gathered around him and assured him that he would not meet the fate of John Huss, that “they would with their own bodies make a living wall before they would allow one hair on his head to be touched.”
The next day Luther spoke out boldly and without fear, giving a lucid description of his work and position. The statement often attributed to Luther, “Here I stand! I can do nought else! So help me God!” supposedly ended his remark that he could produce evidence that church councils had erred and contradicted themselves.
After the meeting adjourned, Luther is supposed to have said that had he a thousand heads they might all be severed one after another before he would make one revocation.
It soon became evident that Luther would not compromise with the papacy. On April 26 he left Worms under a safe-conduct which was to expire in twenty days. He was forbidden to preach anywhere on the return trip, an injunction he neglected to follow, since he was heaped with honors all along his route. The next month the diet sanctioned full
excommunication against him.
By special arrangement the elector of Saxony had provided for Luther’s safety by a well-planned “capture,” previously revealed to Luther. A band of horsemen took him to the Wartburg Castle, where the keeper greeted him as “Squire George.” Here Luther assumed the garb and ways of a knight.
Fearing that Luther had been killed, his friends, and particularly
Melanchthon, were grief-stricken. But Luther was soon able by letters to
dispel these apprehensions. While at the Wartburg, Luther assisted in directing the national and religious opposition to Rome. It was here that he performed his great lifework, the translating of the New Testament into the German language, thus with the same pen giving to Germany not only the Bible in its native tongue, but also a national book which unified Germany. Heinrich Heine has said, “Luther created the German language, and he did it by translating the Bible.”
Differences in points of doctrine began to develop with Luther’s absence;
in fact, so much so, that he thought it imperative to return to Wittenberg.
This he did at least twice, traveling in knight’s clothes and each time bringing a semblance of order out of the raging conflicts of opinion. The second time he remained in Wittenberg.
Gradually the teachings of Luther and Melanchthon spread in an ever- widening circle throughout Germany and into other countries. Every aspect pointed to the formation of a German national church. But at this juncture the Peasants’ War of 1524 broke out. It had deplorable effects upon the Reformation and upon the welfare of the discontented peasantry.
Luther’s apparent responsibility for the uprising has caused many futile discussions. That a relationship existed between his teaching and the revolt, once it had begun, none seem to deny. But the correlation did not necessarily constitute a proof of cause.
Peasant disaffection and periodic outbreaks had been common for many years. The writings of the humanists and the numerous theories favoring economic and political revolutions were factors fully as potent as Luther’s activity in starting the peasants’ struggle for relief from aggravating social, financial, and political conditions. The revolt was not unexpected; it was its organization, range, and violence which brought consternation and fear.
The Peasants’ War did not develop out of religious demands. In the entire sixty-two complaints presented to the lords, the agrarian, not the religious, problems formed the core of grievances. Then, too, the actual outbursts of peasant fury occurred where Luther’s teachings had scarcely penetrated.
Wherein then lies the answer to the question of Luther’s responsibility for the Peasant’s War? It appears in the essence of his teaching, tinged with the democratic theory of the equality of all men. Luther’s peasant
background prompted his sympathy for them. He agreed with the righteousness of their cause, but he also warned against recourse to arms.
Not until all hopes of averting open violence, and plunder, arson, and promiscuous killing had begun, did he write his unfortunate pamphlet, Against the Murdering, Thieving Hordes of Peasants. When frayed tempers possessed rulers and ruled alike, moderation would have been wiser counsel from a man of Luther’s intellectual and spiritual caliber than his encouragement to lords and nobles to suppress and annihilate their opponents.
In less than a year from the beginning of the revolt most of Germany had felt the peasants’ torch and dagger. Quickly the lords and nobles struck with malevolent savagery. Daily the peasant death toll mounted. Estimates run from 100,000 to 150,000. So effectively did subjugation overwhelm the peasants that historians term them the most victimized European group up to the eighteenth century.
And what did the revolt mean to Luther and his enemies? Luther’s doctrine of Christian liberty received a severe blow. When the peasants’
reasonable plea for redress of grievances was answered with the death of scores of thousands of their fellows, their faith in Luther and his teachings suffered a deadly wound. The revolt effectively ended the advance of the German Reformation as a national movement and dwarfed it to territorial proportions. To the League of Catholic Princes it brought increased strength in its opposition to the spread of Lutheranism.
In Luther personally the uprising effected several changes. From his position in 1523 that God must be obeyed in preference to men, a year later he swung to the other extreme by asking the civil authorities to punish his papal opponents. Soon he looked upon the temporal princes as bishops of the church. For the lower classes he developed an expanding distrust, and to save the Reformation from possible disintegration he sacrified the poor powerless peasants to the greedy, powerful princes. By his unwise pronouncements he must carry a portion of the odium of the national enervation and intellectual impotence which pervaded Germany during the closing decades of the sixteenth century.
But in spite of this wretcheel interlude, Luther did not despair. Though much irreparable damage had been done to Germany and to the cause of
the Reformation, he turned aggressively to tasks which were to establish his work for future generations. He advocated that schools be started, and the basic educational ideals he promoted won him distinction as the founder of popular German education.
Luther seemingly never rested. If he was not preaching, he was writing or traveling. As a poet and composer he brought joy and strength to many.
His hymns were approved by the people, and his “Ein’ Feste Burg ist Unser Gott” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”) became the marching song of the German Reformation.
During the years following the Diet of Worms his labors and travels expanded constantly. Disputes and colloquies designed to find a common ground of belief for all Protestants occurred frequently. Luther presented himself at Marburg in 1529, where he and Zwingli debated the merits of the Lord’s Supper and each came away with his own ideas intact. He lent his influence to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the Lutherans presented their basic creed in the Augsburg Confession written by Melanchthon, and to the League of Schmalkalden, an alliance of German princes against the empire in 1531.
All the while, Luther’s writings, showing an undeviating antipathy toward the Catholic Church, continued to flow from his pen unabated, as he dealt with every known doctrine of the age and lashed right and left at
everything he thought stood in the way of the Reformation’s success. His Greater Catechism and the Little Catechism followed in turn, and the German Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, was printed in 1534.
In all he produced 294 works in German and 71 in Latin, not to mention his letters, which run into the thousands.
In 1526 he married Catherine von Bora, a young woman who had fled from a convent in 1523. From all accounts he was a loyal husband and father, and she a devoted wife and mother to their six children. Their union furnished the Christian church in future centuries with the example of what a pastor’s family life should be.
For several years before the end his health had been failing, and he often spoke of his death, for which he seemed to long. He died at Eisleben, the town of his birth, February 18, 1546, and was buried in the Castle Church in Wittenberg.