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           Title: History of the Christian Church, Volume VII. Modern
                  Christianity. The German Reformation
      Creator(s): Schaff, Philip (1819-1893)
     Print Basis: Second edition, revised
   CCEL Subjects: All; History; Proofed;
      LC Call no: BR145.S3
     LC Subjects:

                  Christianity

                  History
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   This volume constitutes the first part of

   THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION

   by Philip Schaff

   It is included as Volume VII in the 8-volume

   HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

   Volume VIII in this series, on the Swiss

   Reformation, completes the 2-volume unit

   on he The History of the Reformation

   HISTORY

   of the

   CHRISTIAN CHURCH [1]

   by

   PHILIP SCHAFF

   professor of church history in the union theological seminary

   new york

   Christianus sum: Christiani nihil a me alienum puto

   VOLUME VII.

   MODERN CHRISTIANITY

   THE GERMAN REFORMATION

   This is a reproduction of the Second Edition, Revised
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   [1] Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, (Oak Harbor, WA:
   Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1997. This material has been carefully
   compared, corrected¸ and emended (according to the 1910 edition of
   Charles Scribner's Sons) by The Electronic Bible Society, Dallas, TX,
   1998.
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   PREFACE.

   I publish the history of the Reformation in advance of the concluding
   volume on the Middle Ages, which will follow in due time.

   The Reformation was a republication of primitive Christianity, and the
   inauguration of modern Christianity. This makes it, next to the
   Apostolic age, the most important and interesting portion of church
   history. The Luther and Zwingli celebrations of 1883 and 1884 have
   revived its memories, and largely increased its literature; while
   scholars of the Roman Church have attempted, with great ability, an
   ultramontane reconstruction of the history of Germany and Europe during
   the period of the Reformation. The Cultur-Kampf is still going on. The
   theological battles of the sixteenth century are being fought over
   again in modern thought, with a slow but steady approach to a better
   understanding and filial settlement. Protestantism with its freedom can
   afford to be fair and just to Romanism, which is chained to its
   traditions. The dogma of papal infallibility is fatal to freedom of
   investigation. Facts must control dogmas, and not dogmas facts. Truth,
   the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is the aim of the
   historian; but truth should be told in love (Eph. 4:15).

   The signs of the times point to a new era in the ever onward March of
   Christ's kingdom. God alone foreknows the future, and sees the end from
   the beginning. We poor mortals know only "in part," and see "in a
   mirror, darkly." But, as the plans of Providence unfold themselves, the
   prospect widens, old prejudices melt away, and hope and charity expand
   with our vision. The historian must be impartial, without being neutral
   or indifferent. He must follow the footsteps of Divine Providence,
   which shapes our ends, and guides all human events in the interest of
   truth, righteousness, and peace.

   I have collected much material for a comprehensive history of the
   Reformation, in the libraries of Europe, during several summer visits
   (thirteen in all), and digested it at home. I have studied the Luther
   literature in Berlin, the Zwingli literature in Zuerich, the
   Calvinistic literature in Geneva and Paris, the English and Scotch
   Reformation in London, Oxford, and Edinburgh. Two years ago I
   revisited, with great satisfaction, the classical localities made
   memorable by the Reformation,--Wittenberg, Eisleben, Eisenach, the
   Wartburg, Halle, Leipzig, Jena, Weimar, Erfurt, Gotha, Heidelberg,
   Zuerich, Geneva,--and found kind friends and Christian brethren
   everywhere. At Marburg, Coburg, Augsburg, I had been before. By way of
   contrast I made in the same year an interesting tour through
   Roman-Catholic Spain, the land of Ferdinand and Isabel, Charles V.,
   Philip II., and Ignatius Loyola, and compared her former and present
   state with the Protestant North. In Italy I have been three times,
   including a three-months sojourn in Rome. A visit to the places of
   events brings one nearer to the actors, and puts one almost into the
   position of a witness.

   This volume embraces, besides a general introduction to modern church
   history, the productive period of the German Reformation, from its
   beginning to the Diet of Augsburg (1530), and the death of Luther
   (1546), with a concluding estimate of the character and services of
   this extraordinary man. I have used the new Weimar edition of his works
   as far as published; for the other parts, Walch and the Erlangen
   edition. Of modern Protestant historians I have chiefly consulted Ranke
   (my teacher), and Koestlin (my friend), with whose views, on Luther and
   the Reformation I am in essential harmony. I have also constantly
   compared the learned Roman-Catholic works of Doellinger, and Janssen,
   besides numerous monographs. The reader will find classified lists of
   the sources and literature in all leading sections (e.g., pp. 94, 99,
   183, 272, 340, 399, 421, 494, 579, 612, 629, 695, 706), and occasional
   excursions into the field of the philosophy of church history (as in
   the introductory chapter, and in §§ 49, 56, 63, 79, 87, 99, etc.). In
   these I have endeavored to interpret the past in the light of the
   present, and to make the movements of the sixteenth century more
   intelligible through their results in the nineteenth. For we must judge
   the tree by its fruits. "God's mills grind slowly, but wonderfully
   fine."

   I am conscious of the defects of this new attempt to reproduce the
   history of the Reformation, which has so often been told by friend and
   foe, but too often in a partisan spirit. I have done the best I could.
   God expects no more from his servants than faithfulness in the use of
   their abilities and opportunities.

   The Author.

   New York, September, 1888.

   HISTORY

   of

   MODERN CHRISTIANITY

   THE REFORMATION.

   FROM A.D. 1517 TO 1648.
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   CHAPTER I.

   ORIENTATION.

   Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
   is liberty.--2 Cor. 3:17.
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   § 1. The Turning Point of Modern History.

   The Reformation of the sixteenth century is, next to the introduction
   of Christianity, the greatest event in history. It marks the end of the
   Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times. Starting from religion,
   it gave, directly or indirectly, a mighty impulse to every forward
   movement, and made Protestantism the chief propelling force in the
   history of modern civilization.

   The age of the Reformation bears a strong resemblance to the first
   century. Both are rich beyond any other period in great and good men,
   important facts, and permanent results. Both contain the ripe fruits of
   preceding, and the fruitful germs of succeeding ages. They are turning
   points in the history of mankind. They are felt in their effects to
   this day, and will be felt to the end of time. They refashioned the
   world from the innermost depths of the human soul in its contact, with
   the infinite Being. They were ushered in by a providential concurrence
   of events and tendencies of thought. The way for Christianity was
   prepared by Moses and the Prophets, the dispersion of the Jews, the
   conquests of Alexander the Great, the language and literature of
   Greece, the arms and laws of Rome, the decay of idolatry, the spread of
   skepticism, the aspirations after a new revelation, the hopes of a
   coming Messiah. The Reformation was preceded and necessitated by the
   corruptions of the papacy, the decline of monasticism and scholastic
   theology, the growth of mysticism, the revival of letters, the
   resurrection of the Greek and Roman classics, the invention of the
   printing press, the discovery of a new world, the publication of the
   Greek Testament, the general spirit of enquiry, the striving after
   national independence and personal freedom. In both centuries we hear
   the creative voice of the Almighty calling light out of darkness.

   The sixteenth century is the age of the renaissance in religion,
   literature, and art. The air was stirred by the spirit of progress and
   freedom. The snows of a long winter were fast, melting before the rays
   of the vernal sun. The world seemed to be renewing its youth; old
   things were passing away, all things were becoming new. Pessimists and
   timid conservatives took alarm at the threatened overthrow of cherished
   notions and institutions, and were complaining, fault-finding and
   desponding. A very useless business. Intelligent observers of the signs
   of the times looked hopefully and cheerfully to the future. "O
   century!" exclaimed Ulrich von Hutten, "the studies flourish, the
   spirits are awake, it is a luxury to live." And Luther wrote in 1522:
   "If you read all the annals of the past, you will find no century like
   this since the birth of Christ. Such building and planting, such good
   living and dressing, such enterprise in commerce, such a stir in all
   the arts, has not been since Christ came into the world. And how
   numerous are the sharp and intelligent people who leave nothing hidden
   and unturned: even a boy of twenty years knows more nowadays than was
   known formerly by twenty doctors of divinity."

   The same may be said with even greater force of the nineteenth century,
   which is eminently an age of discovery and invention, of enquiry and
   progress. And both then as now the enthusiasm for light and liberty
   takes two opposite directions, either towards skepticism and
   infidelity, or towards a revival of true religion from its primitive
   sources. But Christianity triumphed then, and will again regenerate the
   world.

   The Protestant Reformation assumed the helm of the liberal tendencies
   and movements of the renaissance, directed them into the channel of
   Christian life, and saved the world from a disastrous revolution. For
   the Reformation was neither a revolution nor a restoration, though
   including elements of both. It was negative and destructive towards
   error, positive and constructive towards truth; it was conservative as
   well as progressive; it built up new institutions in the place of those
   which it pulled down; and for this reason and to this extent it has
   succeeded.

   Under the motherly care of the Latin Church, Europe had been
   Christianized and civilized, and united into a family of nations under
   the spiritual government of the Pope and the secular government of the
   Emperor, with one creed, one ritual, one discipline, and one sacred
   language. The state of heathenism and barbarism at the beginning of the
   sixth century contrasts with the state of Christian Europe at the
   beginning of the sixteenth century as midnight darkness compared with
   the dawn of the morning. But the sun of the day had not yet arisen.

   All honor to the Catholic Church and her inestimable services to
   humanity. But Christianity is far broader and deeper than any
   ecclesiastical organization. It burst the shell of mediaeval forms,
   struck out new paths, and elevated Europe to a higher plane of
   intellectual, moral and spiritual culture than it had ever attained
   before.
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   § 2. Protestantism and Romanism.

   Protestantism represents the most enlightened and active of modern
   church history, but not the whole of it.

   Since the sixteenth century Western Christendom is divided and runs in
   two distinct channels. The separation may be compared to the Eastern
   schism of the ninth century, which is not healed to this day; both
   parties being as firm and unyielding as ever on the doctrinal question
   of the Filioque, and the more important practical question of Popery.
   But Protestantism differs much more widely from the Roman church than
   the Roman church differs from the Greek, and the Protestant schism has
   become the fruitful mother of minor divisions, which exist in separate
   ecclesiastical organizations.

   We must distinguish between Catholicism and Romanism. The former
   embraces the ancient Oriental church, the mediaeval church, and we may
   say, in a wider sense, all the modern evangelical churches. Romanism is
   the Latin church turned against the Reformation, consolidated by the
   Council of Trent and completed by the Vatican Council of 1870 with its
   dogma of papal absolutism and papal infallibility. Mediaeval
   Catholicism is pre-evangelical, looking to the Reformation; modern
   Romanism is anti-evangelical, condemning the Reformation, yet holding
   with unyielding tenacity the oecumenical doctrines once sanctioned, and
   doing this all the more by virtue of its claim to infallibility.

   The distinction between pre-Reformation Catholicism and
   post-Reformation Romanism, in their attitude towards Protestantism, has
   its historical antecedent and parallel in the distinction between
   pre-Christian Israel which prepared the way for Christianity, and
   post-Christian Judaism which opposed it as an apostasy.

   Catholicism and Protestantism represent two distinct types of
   Christianity which sprang from the same root, but differ in the
   branches.

   Catholicism is legal Christianity which served to the barbarian nations
   of the Middle Ages as a necessary school of discipline; Protestantism
   is evangelical Christianity which answers the age of independent
   manhood. Catholicism is traditional, hierarchical, ritualistic,
   conservative; Protestantism is biblical, democratic, spiritual,
   progressive. The former is ruled by the principle of authority, the
   latter by the principle of freedom. But the law, by awakening a sense
   of sin and exciting a desire for redemption, leads to the gospel;
   parental authority is a school of freedom; filial obedience looks to
   manly self-government.

   The characteristic features of mediaeval Catholicism are intensified by
   Romanism, yet without destroying the underlying unity.

   Romanism and orthodox Protestantism believe in one God, Father, Son,
   and Holy Spirit, and in one divine-human Lord and Saviour of the race.
   They accept in common the Holy Scriptures and the oecumenical faith.
   They agree in every article of the Apostles' Creed. What unites them is
   far deeper, stronger and more important than what divides them.

   But Romanism holds also a large number of "traditions of the elders,"
   which Protestantism rejects as extra-scriptural or anti-scriptural;
   such are the papacy, the worship of saints and relics,
   transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, prayers and masses for
   the dead, works of supererogation, purgatory, indulgences, the system
   of monasticism with its perpetual vows and ascetic practices, besides
   many superstitious rites and ceremonies.

   Protestantism, on the other hand, revived and developed the Augustinian
   doctrines of sin and grace; it proclaimed the sovereignty of divine
   mercy in man's salvation, the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a rule
   of faith, and the sufficiency of Christ's merit as a source of
   justification; it asserted the right of direct access to the Word of
   God and the throne of grace, without human mediators; it secured
   Christian freedom from bondage; it substituted social morality for
   monkish asceticism, and a simple, spiritual worship for an imposing
   ceremonialism that addresses the senses and imagination rather than the
   intellect and the heart.

   The difference between the Catholic and Protestant churches was
   typically foreshadowed by the difference between Jewish and Gentile
   Christianity in the apostolic age, which anticipated, as it were, the
   whole future course of church history. The question of circumcision or
   the keeping of the Mosaic law, as a condition of church membership,
   threatened a split at the Council of Jerusalem, but was solved by the
   wisdom and charity of the apostles, who agreed that Jews and Gentiles
   alike are "saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 15:11). Yet
   even after the settlement of the controversy by the Jerusalem
   compromise Paul got into a sharp conflict with Peter at Antioch on the
   same question, and protested against his older colleague for denying by
   his timid conduct his better conviction, and disowning the Gentile
   brethren. It is not accidental that the Roman Church professes to be
   built on Peter and regards him as the first pope; while the Reformers
   appealed chiefly to Paul and found in his epistles to the Galatians and
   Romans the bulwark of their anthropology and soteriology, and their
   doctrine of Christian freedom. The collision between Paul and Peter was
   only temporary; and so the war between Protestantism and Romanism will
   ultimately pass away in God's own good time.

   The Reformation began simultaneously in Germany and Switzerland, and
   swept with astonishing rapidity over France, Holland, Scandinavia,
   Bohemia, Hungary, England and Scotland; since the seventeenth century
   it has spread by emigration to North America, and by commercial and
   missionary enterprises to every Dutch and English colony, and every
   heathen land. It carried away the majority of the Teutonic and a part
   of the Latin nations, and for a while threatened to overthrow the papal
   church.

   But towards the close of the sixteenth century the triumphant march of
   the Reformation was suddenly arrested. Romanism rose like a wounded
   giant, and made the most vigorous efforts to reconquer the lost
   territory in Europe, and to extend its dominion in Asia and South
   America. Since that time the numerical relation of the two churches has
   undergone little change. But the progress of secular and ecclesiastical
   history has run chiefly in Protestant channels.

   In many respects the Roman Church of to-day is a great improvement upon
   the Mediaeval Church. She has been much benefited by the Protestant
   Reformation, and is far less corrupt and far more prosperous in
   Protestant than in Papal countries. She was driven to a counter-reform
   which abolished some of the most crying abuses and infused new life and
   zeal into her clergy and laity. No papal schism has disgraced her
   history since the sixteenth century. No pope of the character of
   Alexander VI. or even Leo X. could be elected any more. She lives
   chiefly of the past, but uses for her defence all the weapons of modern
   warfare. She has a much larger membership than either the Greek or the
   Protestant communion; she still holds under her sway the Latin races of
   both hemispheres; she satisfies the religious wants of millions of
   human beings in all countries and climes; she extends her educational,
   benevolent and missionary operations all over the globe; she advances
   in proportion as Protestantism degenerates and neglects its duty; and
   by her venerable antiquity, historical continuity, visible unity,
   centralized organization, imposing ritual, sacred art, and ascetic
   piety she attracts intelligent and cultured minds; while the common
   people are kept in ignorance and in superstitious awe of her mysterious
   authority with its claim to open the gates of heaven and hell and to
   shorten the purgatorial sufferings of the departed. For good and evil
   she is the strongest conservative force in modern society, and there is
   every reason to believe that she will last to the end of time.

   Thus the two branches of Western Christendom seem to hold each other in
   check, and ought to stimulate each other to a noble rivalry in good
   works.

   The unhappy divisions of Christendom, while they are the source of many
   evils, have also the good effect of multiplying the agencies for the
   conversion of the world and facilitating the free growth of every phase
   of religious life. The evil lies not so much in the multiplicity of
   denominations, which have a mission to fulfil, as in the spirit of
   sectarianism and exclusivism, which denies the rights and virtues of
   others. The Reformation of the sixteenth century is not a finale, but a
   movement still in progress. We may look hopefully forward to a higher,
   deeper and broader Reformation, when God in His overruling wisdom and
   mercy, by a pentecostal effusion of His Holy Spirit upon all the
   churches, will reunite what the sin and folly of men have divided.
   There must and will be, in the fullest sense of Christ's prophecy, "one
   flock, one Shepherd" (John 10:16). [2]
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   [2] We say "one flock" (mia poimne) not "one fold" (which would require
   mia aule). The latter is a strange mistranslation which has passed from
   the Latin version (ovile) into King James's version, and has often been
   abused as an argument for the papacy and ecclesiastical uniformity. It
   is corrected in the Revision. The two flocks, Jews and Gentiles, became
   one flock in the one Shepherd (poimen), not by entrance into the aule
   of the Jews. There may be one flock in many folds or ecclesiastical
   organizations. The prophecy was no doubt already fulfilled in the
   Apostolic Church (Eph. 2:11-22), but awaits a higher fulfillment when
   "the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in, and all Israel shall be
   saved." Rom. 11:25, 26.
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   §3. Necessity of a Reformation.

   The corruption and abuses of the Latin church had long been the
   complaint of the best men, and even of general councils. A reformation
   of the head and the members was the watchword at Pisa, Constance, and
   Basel, but remained a pium desiderium for a whole century.

   Let us briefly review the dark side in the condition of the church at
   the beginning of the sixteenth century.

   The papacy was secularized, and changed into a selfish tyranny whose
   yoke became more and more unbearable. The scandal of the papal schism
   had indeed been removed, but papal morals, after a temporary
   improvement, became worse than ever during the years 1492 to 1521.
   Alexander VI. was a monster of iniquity; Julius II. was a politician
   and warrior rather than a chief shepherd of souls; and Leo X. took far
   more interest in the revival of heathen literature and art than in
   religion, and is said to have even doubted the truth of the gospel
   history.

   No wonder that many cardinals and priests followed the scandalous
   example of the popes, and weakened the respect of the laity for the
   clergy. The writings of contemporary scholars, preachers and satirists
   are full of complaints and exposures of the ignorance, vulgarity and
   immorality of priests and monks. Simony and nepotism were shamefully
   practiced. Celibacy was a foul fountain of unchastity and uncleanness.
   The bishoprics were monopolized by the youngest sons of princes and
   nobles without regard to qualification. Geiler of Kaisersberg, a stern
   preacher of moral reform at Strassburg (d. 1510), charges all Germany
   with promoting ignorant and worldly men to the chief dignities, simply
   on account of their high connections. Thomas Murner complains that the
   devil had introduced the nobility into the clergy, and monopolized for
   them the bishoprics. [3] Plurality of office and absence from the
   diocese were common. Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz was at the same time
   archbishop of Magdeburg and bishop of Halberstadt. Cardinal Wolsey was
   archbishop of York while chancellor of England, received stipends from
   the kings of France and Spain and the doge of Venice, and had a train
   of five hundred servants. James V. of Scotland (1528-1542) provided for
   his illegitimate children by making them abbots of Holyrood House,
   Kelso, Melrose, Coldingham and St. Andrews, and intrusted royal
   favorites with bishoprics.

   Discipline was nearly ruined. Whole monastic establishments and orders
   had become nurseries of ignorance and superstition, idleness and
   dissipation, and were the objects of contempt and ridicule, as may be
   seen from the controversy of Reuchlin with the Dominicans, the writings
   of Erasmus, and the Epistolae Virorum Obscurorum.

   Theology was a maze of scholastic subtleties, Aristotelian dialectics
   and idle speculations, but ignored the great doctrines of the gospel.
   Carlstadt, the older colleague of Luther, confessed that he had been
   doctor of divinity before he had seen a complete copy of the Bible.
   Education was confined to priests and nobles. The mass of the laity
   could neither read nor write, and had no access to the word of God
   except the Scripture lessons from the pulpit.

   The priest's chief duty was to perform, by his magic words, the miracle
   of transubstantiation, and to offer the sacrifice of the mass for the
   living and the dead in a foreign tongue. Many did it mechanically, or
   with a skeptical reservation, especially in Italy. Preaching was
   neglected, and had reference, mostly, to indulgences, alms, pilgrimages
   and processions. The churches were overloaded with good and bad
   pictures, with real and fictitious relics. Saint-worship and
   image-worship, superstitious rites and ceremonies obstructed the direct
   worship of God in spirit and in truth.

   Piety which should proceed from a living union of the soul with Christ
   and a consecration of character, was turned outward and reduced to a
   round of mechanical performances such as the recital of Paternosters
   and Avemarias, fasting, alms-giving, confession to the priest, and
   pilgrimage to a holy shrine. Good works were measured by the quantity
   rather than the quality, and vitiated by the principle of
   meritoriousness which appealed to the selfish motive of reward.
   Remission of sin could be bought with money; a shameful traffic in
   indulgences was carried on under the Pope's sanction for filthy lucre
   as well as for the building of St. Peter's Dome, and caused that
   outburst of moral indignation which was the beginning of the
   Reformation and of the fearful judgment on the Church of Rome.

   This is a one-sided, but not an exaggerated description. It is true as
   far as it goes, and needs only to be supplemented by the bright side
   which we shall present in the next section.

   Honest Roman Catholic scholars, while maintaining the infallibility and
   consequent doctrinal irreformability of their church, admit in strong
   terms the decay of discipline and the necessity of a moral reform in
   the sixteenth century. [4]

   The best proof is furnished by a pope of exceptional integrity, Adrian
   VI., who made an extraordinary confession of the papal and clerical
   corruption to the Diet of Nürnberg in 1522, and tried earnestly, though
   in vain, to reform his court. The Council of Trent was called not only
   for the extirpation of heresy, but in part also "for the reformation of
   the clergy and Christian people;" [5] and Pope Pius IV., in the bull of
   confirmation, likewise declares that one of the objects of the Council
   was "the correction of morals and the restoration of ecclesiastical
   discipline." [6]

   On the other hand, it must be admitted that the church was more than
   once in a far worse condition, during the papal schism in the
   fourteenth, and especially in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and yet
   she was reformed by Pope Hildebrand and his successors without a split
   and without an alteration of the Catholic Creed.

   Why could not the same be done in the sixteenth century? Because the
   Roman church in the critical moment resisted reform with all her might,
   and forced the issue: either no reformation at all, or a reformation in
   opposition to Rome.

   The guilt of the western schism is divided between the two parties, as
   the guilt of the eastern schism is; although no human tribunal can
   measure the share of responsibility. Much is due, no doubt, to the
   violence and extravagance of the Protestant opposition, but still more
   to the intolerance and stubbornness of the Roman resistance. The papal
   court used against the Reformation for a long time only the carnal
   weapons of political influence, diplomatic intrigue, secular wealth,
   haughty pride, scholastic philosophy, crushing authority, and bloody
   persecution. It repeated the course of the Jewish hierarchy, which
   crucified the Messiah and cast the apostles out of the synagogue.

   But we must look beyond this partial justification, and view the matter
   in the light of the results of the Reformation.

   It was evidently the design of Providence to develop a new type of
   Christianity outside of the restraints of the papacy, and the history
   of three centuries is the best explanation and vindication of that
   design. Every movement in history must be judged by its fruits.

   The elements of such an advance movement were all at work before Luther
   and Zwingli protested against papal indulgences.
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   [3] In his Narrenbeschwörung (1512): "Aber seit der Teufel hat Den Adel
   bracht in Kirchenstat, Seit man kein' Bischof mehr will han Er sei denn
   ganz ein Edelmann," etc.

   [4] So Bellarmine and Bossuet. Möhler also (in his Kirchengesch. III.
   99) says: "We do not believe that the period before the Reformation was
   a flourishing period of church history, for we hear from it a thousand
   voices for a reformation in the head and members (wir hören aus
   derselben den tausendstimmigen Ruf nach einer Verbesserung anHaupt und
   Gliedern uns entgegentönen)" Even Janssen, the eulogist of mediaeval
   Germany, devotes the concluding section of the first volume of his
   Geschichte des deutschen Volkes (p. 594-613) to a consideration of some
   of the crying evils of those times.

   [5] Sess. I. (held Dec. 13, 1545): "ad extirpationem haeresium , ad
   pacem et unionem ecclessiae, ad reformationem cleri et populi
   Christiani." See Smets, Concilii Trident. Canones et Decreta, p.10.

   [6] "Ad plurimas et perniciosissimas haereses extirpandas, ad
   corrigendos mores, et restituendam ecclesiasticam disciplinam" etc. See
   Smets, l.c. 209.
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   § 4. The Preparations for the Reformation.

   C. Ullmann: Reformatoren vor der Reformation. Hamburg, 1841, 2d ed.
   1866, 2 vols. (Engl. trans. by R. Menzies, Edinb. 1855, 2 vols.). C. de
   Bonnechose: Réformateurs avant réforme du xvi. siècle. Par. 1853, 2
   vols. A good résumé by Geo. P. Fisher: The Reformation. New York, 1873,
   ch. III. 52-84; and in the first two lectures of Charles Beard: The
   Reformation, London, 1883, p. 1-75. Comp., also the numerous monographs
   of various scholars on the Renaissance, on Wiclif, Hus, Savonarola,
   Hutten, Reuchlin, Erasmus, etc. A full account of the preparation for
   the Reformation belongs to the last chapters of the History of
   Mediaeval Christianity (see vol. V.). We here merely recapitulate the
   chief points.

   Judaism before Christ was sadly degenerated, and those who sat in
   Moses' seat had become blind leaders of the blind. Yet "salvation is of
   the Jews;" and out of this people arose John the Baptist, the Virgin
   Mary, the Messiah, and the Apostles. Jerusalem, which stoned the
   prophets and crucified the Lord, witnessed also the pentecostal miracle
   and became the mother church of Christendom. So the Catholic church in
   the sixteenth century, though corrupt in its head and its members, was
   still the church of the living God and gave birth to the Reformation,
   which removed the rubbish of human traditions and reopened the pure
   fountain of the gospel of Christ.

   The Reformers, it should not be forgotten, were all born, baptized,
   confirmed, and educated in the Roman Catholic Church, and most of them
   had served as priests at her altars with the solemn vow of obedience to
   the pope on their conscience. They stood as closely related to the
   papal church, as the Apostles and Evangelists to the Synagogue and the
   Temple; and for reasons of similar urgency, they were justified to
   leave the communion of their fathers; or rather, they did not leave it,
   but were cast out by the ruling hierarchy.

   The Reformation went back to first principles in order to go forward.
   It struck its roots deep in the past and bore rich fruits for the
   future. It sprang forth almost simultaneously from different parts of
   Europe and was enthusiastically hailed by the leading minds of the age
   in church and state. No great movement in history--except Christianity
   itself--was so widely and thoroughly prepared as the Protestant
   Reformation.

   The reformatory Councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basel; the conflict of
   the Emperors with the Popes; the contemplative piety of the mystics
   with their thirst after direct communion with God; the revival of
   classical literature; the general intellectual awakening; the biblical
   studies of Reuchlin, and Erasmus; the rising spirit of national
   independence; Wiclif, and the Lollards in England; Hus, and the
   Hussites in Bohemia; John von Goch, John von Wesel, and Johann Wessel
   in Germany and the Netherlands; Savonarola in Italy; the Brethren of
   the Common Life, the Waldenses, the Friends of God,--contributed their
   share towards the great change and paved the way for a new era of
   Christianity. The innermost life of the church was pressing forward to
   a new era. There is scarcely a principle or doctrine of the Reformation
   which was not anticipated and advocated in the fourteenth and fifteenth
   centuries. Luther made the remark that his opponents might charge him
   with having borrowed everything from John Wessel if he had known his
   writings earlier. The fuel was abundant all over Europe, but it
   required the spark which would set it ablaze.

   Violent passions, political intrigues, the ambition and avarice of
   princes, and all sorts of selfish and worldly motives were mixed up
   with the war against the papacy. But they were at work likewise in the
   introduction of Christianity among the heathen barbarians. "Wherever
   God builds a church, the devil builds a chapel close by." Human nature
   is terribly corrupt and leaves its stains on the noblest movements in
   history.

   But, after all, the religious leaders of the Reformation, while not
   free from faults, were men of the purest motives and highest aims, and
   there is no nation which has not been benefited by the change they
   introduced.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 5. The Genius and Aim of the Reformation.

   Is. Aug. Dorner: On the formal, and the material Principle of the
   Reformation. Two essays, first published in 1841 and 1857, and
   reprinted in his Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1883, p. 48-187. Also
   his History of Protestant Theology, Engl. trans. 1871, 2 vols.

   Phil. Schaff: The Principle of Protestantism, Chambersburg, Penn., 1845
   (German and English); Protestantism and Romanism, and the Principles of
   the Reformation, two essays in his "Christ and Christianity," N. York,
   1885. p. 124-134. Also Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I. 203-219.

   Dan. Schenkel: Das Princip des Protestantimus. Schaffhausen, 1852 (92
   pages). This is the concluding section of his larger work, Das Wesen
   des Protestantismus, in 3 vols.

   K. F. A. Kahnis: Ueber die Principien des Protestatismus. Leipzig,
   1865. Also his Zeugniss von den Grundwahrheiten des Protestantismus
   gegen Dr. Hengstenberg. Leipzig, 1862.

   Charles Beard: The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in its relation
   to Modern Thought and Knowledge. Hibbert Lectures for 1883. London,
   1883. A Unitarian view, written with ample learning and in excellent
   spirit.

   Henry Wace and C. A. Buchheim: First Principles of the Reformation, or
   the 95 Theses and three Primary Works of Dr. M. Luther. London, 1885.

   The literature on the difference between Lutheran and Reformed or
   Calvinistic Protestantism is given in Schaff's Creeds of Christendom,
   l. 211.

   The spirit and aim of evangelical Protestantism is best expressed by
   Paul in his anti-Judaistic Epistle to the Galatians: "For freedom did
   Christ set us free; stand fast, therefore, and be not entangled again
   in a yoke of bondage." Christian freedom is so inestimable a blessing
   that no amount of abuse can justify a relapse into a state of spiritual
   despotism and slavery. But only those who have enjoyed it, can properly
   appreciate it.

   The Reformation was at first a purely religious movement, and furnishes
   a striking illustration of the all-pervading power of religion in
   history. It started from the question: What must a man do to be saved?
   How shall a sinner be justified before God, and attain peace of his
   troubled conscience? The Reformers were supremely concerned for the
   salvation of the soul, for the glory of Christ and the triumph of his
   gospel. They thought much more of the future world than of the present,
   and made all political, national, and literary interests subordinate
   and subservient to religion. [7]

   Yet they were not monks, but live men in a live age, not pessimists,
   but optimists, men of action as well as of thought, earnest, vigorous,
   hopeful men, free from selfish motives and aims, full of faith and the
   Holy Ghost, equal to any who had preceded them since the days of the
   Apostles. From the centre of religion they have influenced every
   department of human life and activity, and given a powerful impulse to
   political and civil liberty, to progress in theology, philosophy,
   science, and literature.

   The Reformation removed the obstructions which the papal church had
   interposed between Christ and the believer. It opened the door to
   direct union with him , as the only Mediator between God and man, and
   made his gospel accessible to every reader without the permission of a
   priest. It was a return to first principles, and for this very reason
   also a great advance. It was a revival of primitive Christianity, and
   at the same time a deeper apprehension and application of it than had
   been known before.

   There are three fundamental principles of the Reformation: the
   supremacy of the Scriptures over tradition, the supremacy of faith over
   works, and the supremacy of the Christian people over an exclusive
   priesthood. The first may be called the objective, the second the
   subjective, the third the social or ecclesiastical principle. [8]

   They resolve themselves into the one principle of evangelical freedom,
   or freedom in Christ. The ultimate aim of evangelical Protestantism is
   to bring every man into living union with Christ as the only and
   all-sufficient Lord and Saviour from sin and death.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [7] What Dr. Baur, the critical Tübingen historian, says of Luther, is
   equally applicable to all the other Reformers: "Dass für Luther die
   Reformation zur eigensten Sache seines Herzens geworden war, dass er
   sie in ihrem reinsten religiösen Interesse auffasste, getrennt von
   allen ihr fremdartigen blos äusserlichen Motiven, dass es ihm um nichts
   anderes zu thun war, alsum die Sache des Evangeliums und
   seinerseligmachenden Kraft, wie er sie an sich selbst in seinem innern
   Kampf um die Gewissheit der Sündenvergebung erfahren hatte, diess ist
   es, was ihn zum Reformator machte."Gesch. der Christl. Kirche, vol. IV.
   5 (ed. by his son, 1863). Froude says of Luther: "He revived and
   maintained the spirit of piety and reverence in which, and by which
   alone, real progress is possible."Luther, Preface, p. vi.

   [8] German writers distinguish usually two principles of the
   Reformation, the authority of the Scriptures, and justification by
   faith, and call the first the formal principle (or Erkenntnissprincip,
   principium cognoscendi), the second the material principle (principium
   essendi); the third they omit, except Kahnis, who finds a third
   principle in the idea of the invisible church, and calls this the
   Kirchenprincip. The Lutheran Church gives to the doctrine of
   justification by faith the first place; and the Formula of Concord
   calls it "articulus praecipuus in tota doctrina Christiana." But the
   Reformed confessions give the first place to the doctrine of the
   normative authority of Scripture, from which alone all articles of
   faith are to be derived, and they substitute for the doctrine of
   justification by faith the ulterior and wider doctrine of election and
   salvation by free grace through faith. The difference is
   characteristic, but does not affect the essential agreement.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 6. The Authority of the Scriptures.

   The objective principle of Protestantism maintains that the Bible, as
   the inspired record of revelation, is the only infallible rule of faith
   and practice; in opposition to the Roman Catholic coordination of
   Scripture and ecclesiastical tradition, as the joint rules of faith.

   The teaching of the living church is by no means rejected, but
   subordinated to the Word of God; while the opposite theory virtually
   subordinates the Bible to tradition by making the latter the sole
   interpreter of the former and confining interpretation within the
   limits of an imaginary consensus patrum. In the application of the
   Bible principle there was considerable difference between the more
   conservative Lutheran and Anglican Reformation, and the more radical
   Zwinglian and Calvinistic Reformation; the former contained many
   post-scriptural and extra-scriptural traditions, usages and
   institutions, which the latter, in its zeal for primitive purity and
   simplicity, rejected as useless or dangerous; but all Reformers opposed
   what they regarded as anti-scriptural doctrines; and all agreed in the
   principle that the church has no right to impose upon the conscience
   articles of faith without clear warrant in the Word of God.

   Every true progress in church history is conditioned by a new and
   deeper study of the Scriptures, which has "first, second, third,
   infinite draughts." While the Humanists went back to the ancient
   classics and revived the spirit of Greek and Roman paganism, the
   Reformers went back to the sacred Scriptures in the original languages
   and revived the spirit of apostolic Christianity. They were fired by an
   enthusiasm for the gospel, such as had never been known since the days
   of Paul. Christ rose from the tomb of human traditions and preached
   again his words of life and power. The Bible, heretofore a book of
   priests only, was now translated anew and better than ever into the
   vernacular tongues of Europe, and made a book of the people. Every
   Christian man could henceforth go to the fountain-head of inspiration,
   and sit at the feet of the Divine Teacher, without priestly permission
   and intervention. This achievement of the Reformation was a source of
   incalculable blessings for all time to come. In a few years Luther's
   version had more readers among the laity than ever the Latin Vulgate
   had among priests; and the Protestant Bible societies circulate more
   Bibles in one year than were copied during the fifteen centuries before
   the Reformation.

   We must remember, however, that this wonderful progress was only made
   possible by the previous invention of the art of printing and by the
   subsequent education of the people. The Catholic Church had preserved
   the sacred Scriptures through ages of ignorance and barbarism; the
   Latin Bible was the first gift of the printing press to the world;
   fourteen or more editions of a German version were printed before 1518;
   the first two editions of the Greek Testament we owe to the liberality
   of a Spanish cardinal (Ximenes), and the enterprise of a Dutch scholar
   in Basel (Erasmus); and the latter furnished the text from which, with
   the aid of Jerome's Vulgate, the translations of Luther and Tyndale
   were made.

   The Roman church, while recognizing the divine inspiration and
   authority of the Bible, prefers to control the laity by the teaching
   priesthood, and allows the reading of the Scriptures in the popular
   tongues only under certain restrictions and precautions, from fear of
   abuse and profanation. Pope Innocent III. was of the opinion that the
   Scriptures were too deep for the common people, as they surpassed even
   the understanding of the wise and learned. Several synods in Gaul,
   during the thirteenth century, prohibited the reading of the Romanic
   translation, and ordered the copies to be burnt. Archbishop Berthold,
   of Mainz, in an edict of January 4th, 1486, threatened with
   excommunication all who ventured to translate and to circulate
   translations of sacred books, especially the Bible, without his
   permission. The Council of Constance (1415), which burnt John Hus and
   Jerome of Prague, condemned also the writings and the hopes of Wiclif,
   the first translator of the whole Bible into the English tongue, to the
   flames: and Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of
   England, denounced him as that "pestilent wretch of damnable heresy
   who, as a complement of his wickedness, invented a new translation of
   the Scriptures into his mother tongue." Pope Pius IV. (1564), in the
   conviction that the indiscriminate reading of Bible versions did more
   harm than good (plus detrimenti quam utilitiatis), would not allow
   laymen to read the sacred book except by special permission of a bishop
   or an inquisitor. Clement VIII. (1598) reserved the right to grant this
   permission to the Congregation of the Index. Gregory XV. (1622), and
   Clement XI. (in the Bull Unigenitus, 1713), repeated the conditional
   prohibition. Benedict XIV., one of the liberal popes, extended the
   permission to read the Word of God in the vernacular to all the
   faithful, yet with the proviso that the translation be approved in Rome
   and guarded by explanatory notes from the writings of the fathers and
   Catholic scholars (1757). This excludes, of course, all Protestant
   versions, even the very best. They are regarded as corrupt and
   heretical and have often been committed to the flames in Roman Catholic
   countries, especially in connection with the counter-Reformation of the
   Jesuits in Bohemia and elsewhere. The first edition of Tyndale's New
   Testament had to be smuggled into England and was publicly burnt by
   order of Tunstall, bishop of London, in St. Paul's church-yard near the
   spot from which Bibles are now sent to all parts of the globe. The
   Bible societies have been denounced and condemned by modern popes as a
   "pestilence which perverts the gospel of Christ into a gospel of the
   devil." The Papal Syllabus of Pius IX. (1864), classes "Societates
   Biblicae" with Socialism, Communism, and Secret Societies, calls them
   "pests frequently rebuked in the severest terms," and refers for proof,
   to several Encyclicals from November 9th, 1846, to August 10th, 1863.
   [9]

   Such fulminations against Protestant Bible societies might be in some
   measure excused if the popes favored Catholic Bible societies, which
   would be the best proof of zeal for the spread of the Scriptures. But
   such institutions do not exist. Fortunately papal bulls have little
   effect in modern times, and in spite of official prohibitions and
   discouragements, there are zealous advocates of Bible reading among
   modern Catholics, as there were among the Greek and Latin fathers. [10]
   Nor have the restrictions of the Council of Trent been able to prevent
   the progress of Biblical scholarship and exegesis even in the Roman
   church. E pur si muove. The Bible, as well as the earth, moves for all
   that.

   Modern Protestant theology is much more just to ecclesiastical
   tradition than the Reformers could be in their hot indignation against
   the prevailing corruptions and against the papal tyranny of their day.
   The deeper study of ecclesiastical and secular history has dispelled
   the former ignorance on the "dark ages," so called, and brought out the
   merits of the fathers, missionaries, schoolmen, and popes, in the
   progress of Christian civilization.

   But these results do not diminish the supreme value of the sacred
   Scripture as an ultimate tribunal of appeal in matters of faith, nor
   the importance of its widest circulation. It is by far the best guide
   of instruction in holy living and dying. No matter what theory of the
   mode and extent of inspiration we may hold, the fact of inspiration is
   plain and attested by the universal consent of Christendom. The Bible
   is a book of holy men, but just as much a book of God, who made those
   men witnesses of truth and sure teachers of the way of salvation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [9] Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, II. 218; Köllner, Symbolik II. 351,
   sqq.; Hase, Handbuch der Protestant. Polemik, fourth ed., 1878, p. 68
   sqq. There were indeed vernacular translations of the Bible long before
   the Reformation; but it is a most astounding exaggeration when Perrone,
   as quoted by Hase, asserts (Praelect. Theol. III. § 317): "Per idem
   tempus 800plus minus editiones Bibliorum aut N. T. ante Reformationem
   prodierant, ac per universam Europam catholicam circumferebantur,
   antequam vel protestantis nomen agnosceretur. Et ex his 200 versiones
   in linguis vernaculis diversarum gentium omnium manibus libere
   versabantur."

   [10] See L. Van Ess,Auszüge über das nothwendige und nützliche
   Bibellesen aus den Kirchenvätern und anderen kathol. Schriften, second
   ed., 1816; also the preface to his translation of the New Testament.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 7. Justification by Faith.

   The subjective principle of Protestantism is the doctrine of
   justification and salvation by faith in Christ; as distinct from the
   doctrine of justification by faith and works or salvation by grace and
   human merit. Luther's formula is sola fide. Calvin goes further back to
   God's eternal election, as the ultimate ground of salvation and comfort
   in life and in death. But Luther and Calvin meant substantially the
   same thing, and agree in the more general proposition of salvation by
   free grace through living faith in Christ (Acts 4:12), in opposition to
   any Pelagian or Semi-pelagian compromise which divides the work and
   merit between God and man. And this is the very soul of evangelical
   Protestantism. [11]

   Luther assigned to his solifidian doctrine of justification the central
   position in the Christian system, declared it to be the article of the
   standing or falling (Lutheran) church, and was unwilling to yield an
   inch from it, though heaven and earth should collapse. [12] This
   exaggeration is due to his personal experience during his convent life.
   The central article of the Christian faith on which the church is
   built, is not any specific dogma of the Protestant, or Roman, or Greek
   church, but the broader and deeper truth held by all, namely, the
   divine-human personality and atoning work of Christ, the Lord and
   Saviour. This was the confession of Peter, the first creed of
   Christendom.

   The Protestant doctrine of justification differs from the Roman
   Catholic, as defined (very circumspectly) by the Council of Trent,
   chiefly in two points. Justification is conceived as a declaratory and
   judicial act of God, in distinction from sanctification, which is a
   gradual growth; and faith is conceived as a fiducial act of the heart
   and will, in distinction from theoretical belief and blind submission
   to the church. The Reformers derived their idea from Paul, the
   Romanists appealed chiefly to James (2:17-26); but Paul suggests the
   solution of the apparent contradiction by his sentence, that "in Christ
   Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but
   faith working through love."

   Faith, in the biblical and evangelical sense, is a vital force which
   engages all the powers of man and apprehends and appropriates the very
   life of Christ and all his benefits. It is the child of grace and the
   mother of good works. It is the pioneer of all great thoughts and
   deeds. By faith Abraham became the father of nations; by faith Moses
   became the liberator and legislator of Israel; by faith the Galilean
   fishermen became fishers of men; and by faith the noble army of martyrs
   endured tortures and triumphed in death; without faith in the risen
   Saviour the church could not have been founded. Faith is a saving
   power. It unites us to Christ. Whosoever believeth in Christ "hath
   eternal life." "We believe," said Peter at the Council of Jerusalem,
   "that we shall be saved through the grace of God," like the Gentiles
   who come to Christ by faith without the works and ceremonies of the
   law. "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved," was Paul's
   answer to the question of the jailor: "What must I do to be saved?"

   Protestantism does by no means despise or neglect good works or favor
   antinomian license; it only subordinates them to faith, and measures
   their value by quality rather than quantity. They are not the
   condition, but the necessary evidence of justification; they are not
   the root, but the fruits of the tree. The same faith which justifies,
   does also sanctify. It is ever "working through love" (Gal. 5:6).
   Luther is often charged with indifference to good works, but very
   unjustly. His occasional unguarded utterances must be understood in
   connection with his whole teaching and character. "Faith" in his own
   forcible language which expresses his true view, "faith is a living,
   busy, active, mighty thing and it is impossible that it should not do
   good without ceasing; it does not ask whether good works are to be
   done, but before the question is put, it has done them already, and is
   always engaged in doing them; you may as well separate burning and
   shining from fire, as works from faith."

   The Lutheran doctrine of Christian freedom and justification by faith
   alone, like that of St. Paul on which it was based, was made the cloak
   of excesses by carnal men who wickedly reasoned, "Let us continue in
   sin that grace may abound" (Rom. 6:1), and who abused their "freedom
   for an occasion to the flesh" (Gal. 5:13). All such consequences the
   apostle cut off at the outset by an indignant "God forbid."

   The fact is undeniable, that the Reformation in Germany was accompanied
   and followed by antinomian tendencies and a degeneracy of public
   morals. It rests not only on the hostile testimonies of Romanists and
   separatists, but Luther and Melanchthon themselves often bitterly
   complained in their later years of the abuse of the liberty of the
   gospel and the sad state of morals in Wittenberg and throughout Saxony.
   [13]

   But we should remember, first, that the degeneracy of morals,
   especially the increase of extravagance, and luxury with its attending
   vices, had begun in Catholic times in consequence of discoveries and
   inventions, the enlargement of commerce and wealth. [14] Nor was it
   near as bad as the state of things which Luther had witnessed at Rome
   in 1510, under Pope Julius II., not to speak of the more wicked reign
   of Pope Alexander VI. Secondly, the degeneracy was not due so much to a
   particular doctrine, as to the confusion which necessarily followed the
   overthrow of the ecclesiastical order and discipline, and to the fact
   that the Lutheran Reformers allowed the government of the church too
   easily to pass from the bishops into the hands of secular rulers.
   Thirdly, the degeneracy was only temporary during the transition from
   the abolition of the old to the establishment of the new order of
   things. Fourthly, the disorder was confined to Germany. The Swiss
   Reformers from the start laid greater stress on discipline than the
   Lutheran Reformers, and organized the new church on a more solid basis.
   Calvin introduced a state of moral purity and rigorism in Geneva such
   as had never been known before in the Christian church. The Huguenots
   of France, the Calvinists of Holland, the Puritans of England and New
   England, and the Presbyterians of Scotland are distinguished for their
   strict principles and habits. An impartial comparison of Protestant
   countries and nations with Roman Catholic, in regard to the present
   state of public and private morals and general culture, is eminently
   favorable to the Reformation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [11] Only in this sense can it be called Augustinian; for otherwise
   Augustin's conception of justificatio is catholic, and he identifies it
   with sanctificatio. Moreover he widely differs from the Protestant
   conception of the church and its authority. Luther felt the difference
   in his later years.

   [12] Articuli Smalcaldici, p. 305 (ed. Rechenb., or 310 ed. Müller):
   "De hoc articulo [solam fidem nos justificare] cedere or aliquid contra
   illum largiri aut permittere nemo piorum potest etiamsi coelum et terra
   et omnia corruant. (Acts 4:12; Isa. 53:3). Et in hoc articulo sita sunt
   et consistunt omnia, quae contra papam, diabolum et universum mundum in
   vita nostra docemus, testamur et agimus. Quare opportet nos de hac
   doctrina esse certos, et minime dubitare, alioquin actum est prorsus,
   et papa et diabolus et omnia adversa jus et victoriam contra nos
   obtinent." Luther inserted in his translation of Rom. 3:28, the word
   allein (sola fide, hence the term solifidianism), and the revised
   Probebibel of 1883 retained it. On the exegetical questions involved,
   see my annotations to Lange on Romans 3:28.

   [13] The weight of Döllinger's three volumes on the Reformation (1848)
   consists in the collection of such unfavorable testimonies from the
   writings of Erasmus, Wizel, Haner, Wildenauer, Crotus Rubeanus,
   Biblicanus, Staupitz, Amerpach, Pirkheimer, Zasius, Frank, Denk,
   Hetzer, Schwenkfeld, Luther, Melanchthon, Spalatin, Bugenhagen, and
   others. They give, indeed, a very gloomy, but a very one-sided picture
   of the times. Janssen makes good use of these testimonies. But both
   these Catholic historians whose eminent learning is undeniable, wrote
   with a polemic aim, and make the very truth lie by omitting the bright
   side of the Reformation. Comp. on this subject the controversial
   writings of Köstlin and Ebrard against Janssen, and Janssen's replies,
   An meine Kritiker, Freiburg i. B. 1883 (Zehntes Tausend, 227 pages),
   and Ein zweites Wort an meine Kritiker, Freib. 1883 (Zwölftes Tausend,
   144 pages).

   [14] Even Janssen admits this, but is silent about the greater
   corruption in Rome. See his Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes I. 375 sqq.
   Comp. his Ein zweites Wort an meine Kritiker, p. 82.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 8. The Priesthood of the Laity.

   The social or ecclesiastical principle of Protestantism is the general
   priesthood of believers, in distinction from the special priesthood
   which stands mediating between Christ and the laity.

   The Roman church is an exclusive hierarchy, and assigns to the laity
   the position of passive obedience. The bishops are the teaching and
   ruling church; they alone constitute a council or synod, and have the
   exclusive power of legislation and administration. Laymen have no voice
   in spiritual matters, they can not even read the Bible without the
   permission of the priest, who holds the keys of heaven and hell.

   In the New Testament every believer is called a saint, a priest, and a
   king. "All Christians," says Luther, "are truly of the spiritual
   estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. As
   St. Paul says, we are all one body, though each member does its own
   work, to serve the others. This is because we have one baptism, alike;
   one gospel, one faith, and are all Christians for baptism, gospel and
   faith, these alone make spiritual and Christian people." And again: "It
   is faith that makes men priests, faith that unites them to Christ, and
   gives them the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whereby they become
   filled with all holy grace and heavenly power. The inward
   anointing--this oil, better than any that ever came from the horn of
   bishop or pope--gives them not the name only, but the nature, the
   purity, the power of priests; and this anointing have all they received
   who are believers in Christ."

   This principle, consistently carried out, raises the laity to active
   co-operation in the government and administration of the church; it
   gives them a voice and vote in the election of the pastor; it makes
   every member of the congregation useful, according to his peculiar
   gift, for the general good. This principle is the source of religious
   and civil liberty which flourishes most in Protestant countries.
   Religious liberty is the mother of civil liberty. The universal
   priesthood of Christians leads legitimately to the universal kingship
   of free, self-governing citizens, whether under a monarchy or under a
   republic.

   The good effect of this principle showed itself in the spread of Bible
   knowledge among the laity, in popular hymnody and congregational
   singing, in the institution of lay-eldership, and in the pious zeal of
   the magistrates for moral reform and general education.

   But it was also shamefully perverted and abused by the secular rulers
   who seized the control of religion, made themselves bishops and popes
   in their dominion, robbed the churches and convents, and often defied
   all discipline by their own immoral conduct. . Philip of Hesse, and
   Henry VIII. of England, are conspicuous examples of Protestant popes
   who disgraced the cause of the Reformation. Erastianism and
   Territorialism whose motto is: cujus regio, ejus religio, are
   perversions rather than legitimate developments of lay-priesthood. The
   true development lies in the direction of general education, in
   congregational self-support and self-government, and in the intelligent
   co-operation of the laity with the ministry in all good works, at home
   and abroad. In this respect the Protestants of England, Scotland, and
   North America, are ahead of the Protestants on the Continent of Europe.
   The Roman church is a church of priests and has the grandest temples of
   worship; the Lutheran church is a church of theologians and has most
   learning and the finest hymns; the Reformed church is a church of the
   Christian people and has the best preachers and congregations.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 9. The Reformation and Rationalism.

   G. Frank: De Luthero rationalismi praecursore. Lips., 1857.

   S. Berger: La Bible an seizième siècle; étude sur les origines de la
   critique. Paris, 1879.

   Charles Beard: The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in relation, to
   Modem Thought and Knowledge (Hibbert Lectures). London, 1883. Lect. V.

   Comp. also Lecky: History of Rationalism in Europe. London, 4th ed.
   1870, 2 vols. George P. Fisher: Faith and Rationalism. New York, 1879,
   revised 1885 (191 pages).

   The Roman Catholic Church makes Scripture and tradition the supreme
   rule of faith, laying the chief stress on tradition, that is, the
   teaching of an infallible church headed by an infallible Pope, as the
   judge of the meaning of both. [15]

   Evangelical, Protestantism makes the Scripture alone the supreme rule,
   but uses tradition and reason as means in ascertaining its true sense.

   Rationalism raises human reason above Scripture and tradition, and
   accepts them only as far as they come within the limits of its
   comprehension. It makes rationality or intelligibility the measure of
   credibility. We take the word Rationalism here in the technical sense
   of a theological system and tendency in distinction from rational
   theology. The legitimate use of reason in religion is allowed by the
   Catholic and still more by the Protestant church, and both have
   produced scholastic systems in full harmony with orthodoxy.
   Christianity is above reason, but not against reason.

   The Reformation is represented as the mother of Rationalism both by
   Rationalistic and by Roman Catholic historians and controversialists,
   but from an opposite point of view, by the former to the credit, by the
   latter to the disparagement of both.

   The Reformation, it is said, took the first step in the emancipation of
   reason: it freed us from the tyranny of the church. Rationalism took
   the second step: it freed us from the tyranny of the Bible. "Luther,"
   says Lessing, the champion of criticism against Lutheran orthodoxy,
   "thou great, misjudged man! Thou hast redeemed us from the yoke of
   tradition: who will redeem us from the unbearable yoke of the letter!
   Who will at last bring us a Christianity such as thou would teach us
   now, such as Christ himself would teach!"

   Roman Catholics go still further and hold Protestantism responsible for
   all modern revolutions and for infidelity itself, and predict its
   ultimate dismemberment and dissolution. [16] But this charge is
   sufficiently set aside by the undeniable fact that modern infidelity
   and revolution in their worst forms have appeared chiefly in Roman
   Catholic countries, as desperate reactions against hierarchical and
   political despotism. The violent suppression of the Reformation in
   France ended at last in a radical overthrow of the social order of the
   church. In Roman Catholic countries, like Spain and Mexico, revolution
   has become a chronic disease. Romanism provokes infidelity among
   cultivated minds by its excessive supernaturalism.

   The Reformation checked the skepticism of the renaissance, and the
   anarchical tendencies of the Peasants' War in Germany and of the
   Libertines in Geneva. An intelligent faith is the best protection
   against infidelity; and a liberal government is a safeguard against
   revolution.

   The connection of the Reformation with Rationalism is a historical
   fact, but they are related to each other as the rightful use of
   intellectual freedom to the excess and abuse of it. Rationalism asserts
   reason against revelation, and freedom against divine as well as human
   authority. It is a one-sided development of the negative, protesting,
   antipapal and antitraditional factor of the Reformation to the
   exclusion of its positive, evangelical faith in the revealed will and
   word of God. It denies the supernatural and miraculous. It has a
   superficial sense of sin and guilt, and is essentially Pelagian; while
   the Reformation took the opposite Augustinian ground and proceeded from
   the deepest conviction of sin and the necessity of redeeming grace. The
   two systems are thus theoretically and practically opposed to each
   other. And yet there is an intellectual and critical affinity between
   them, and Rationalism is inseparable from the history of Protestantism.
   It is in the modern era of Christianity what Gnosticism was in the
   ancient church--a revolt of private judgment against the popular faith
   and church orthodoxy, an overestimate of theoretic knowledge, but also
   a wholesome stimulus to inquiry and progress. It is not a church or
   sect (unless we choose to include Socinianism and Unitarianism), but a
   school in the church, or rather a number of schools which differ very
   considerably from each other.

   Rationalism appeared first in the seventeenth century in the Church of
   England, though without much effect upon the people, as Deism, which
   asserted natural religion versus revealed religion; it was matured in
   its various phases after the middle of the eighteenth century on the
   Continent, especially in Protestant Germany since Lessing (d. 1781) and
   Semler (d. 1791), and gradually obtained the mastery of the chairs and
   pulpits of Lutheran and Reformed churches, till about 1817, when a
   revival of the positive faith of the Reformation spread over Germany
   and a serious conflict began between positive and negative
   Protestantism, which continues to this day.

   1. Let us first consider the relation of the Reformation to the use of
   reason as a general principle.

   The Reformation was a protest against human authority, asserted the
   right of private conscience and judgment, and roused a spirit of
   criticism and free inquiry in all departments of knowledge. It allows,
   therefore, a much wider scope for the exercise of reason in religion
   than the Roman church, which requires an unconditional submission to
   her infallible authority. It marks real progress, but this progress is
   perfectly consistent with a belief in revelation on subjects which lie
   beyond the boundary of time and sense. What do we know of the creation,
   and the world of the future, except what God has chosen to reveal to
   us? Human reason can prove the possibility and probability of the
   existence of God and the immortality of the soul, but not the certainty
   and necessity. It is reasonable, therefore, to believe in the
   supernatural on divine testimony, and it is unreasonable to reject it.

   The Reformers used their reason and judgment very freely in their
   contest with church authority. Luther refused to recant in the crisis
   at Worms, unless convinced by testimonies of the Scriptures and "cogent
   arguments." [17] For a while he was disposed to avail himself of the
   humanistic movement which was skeptical and rationalistic in its
   tendency, but his strong religious nature always retained the mastery.
   He felt as keenly as any modern Rationalist, the conflict between
   natural reason and the transcending mysteries of revelation. He was
   often tormented by doubts and even temptations to blasphemy, especially
   when suffering from physical infirmity. A comforter of others, he
   needed comfort himself and asked the prayers of friends to fortify him
   against the assaults of the evil spirit, with whom he had, as he
   thought, many a personal encounter. He confessed, in 1524, how glad he
   would have been five years before in his war with papal superstition,
   if Carlstadt could have convinced him that the Eucharist was nothing
   but bread and wine, and how strongly he was then inclined to that
   rationalistic view which would have given a death blow to
   transubstantiation and the mass. He felt that every article of his
   creed--the trinity, in unity, the incarnation, the transmission of
   Adam's sin, the atonement by the blood of Christ, baptismal
   regeneration, the real presence, the renewal of the Holy Spirit, the
   resurrection of the body--transcended human comprehension. In Aug. 2,
   1527, during the raging of the pestilence at Wittenberg, he wrote to
   Melanchthon, who was absent at Jena: "For more than a week I have been
   tossed about in death and hell; so that, hurt in all my body, I still
   tremble in every limb. For having almost wholly lost Christ, I was
   driven about by storms and tempests of despair and blasphemy against
   God. But God, moved by the prayers of the saints, begins to have pity
   upon me, and has drawn my soul out of the lowest hell. Do not cease to
   pray for me, as I do for you. I believe that this agony of mine
   pertains to others also." [18]

   In such trials and temptations he clung all the more mightily to the
   Scriptures and to faith which believes against reason and hopes against
   hope. "It is a quality of faith," he says in the explanation of his
   favorite Epistle to the Galatians, "that it wrings the neck of reason
   and strangles the beast, which else the whole world, with all
   creatures, could not strangle. But how? It holds to God's Word, and
   lets it be right and true, no matter how foolish and impossible it
   sounds. So did Abraham take his reason captive and slay it, inasmuch as
   he believed God's Word, wherein was promised him that from his
   unfruitful and as it were dead wife, Sarah, God would give him seed."

   This and many similar passages clearly show the bent of Luther's mind.
   He knew the enemy, but overcame it; his faith triumphed over doubt. In
   his later years he became more and more a conservative churchman. He
   repudiated the mystic doctrine of the inner word and spirit, insisted
   on submission to the written letter of the Scriptures, even when it
   flatly contradicted reason. He traced the errors of the Zwickau
   prophets, the rebellious peasants, the Anabaptists, and the radical
   views of Carlstadt and Zwingli, without proper discrimination, to
   presumptuous inroads of the human reason into the domain of faith, and
   feared from them the overthrow of religion. He so far forgot his
   obligations to Erasmus as to call him an Epicurus, a Lucian, a doubter,
   and an atheist. Much as he valued reason as a precious gift of God in
   matters of this world, he abused it with unreasonable violence, when it
   dared to sit in judgment over matters of faith. [19]

   Certainly, Luther must first be utterly divested of his faith, and the
   authorship of his sermons, catechisms and hymns must be called in
   question, before he can be appealed to as the father of Rationalism. He
   would have sacrificed his reason ten times rather than his faith.

   Zwingli was the most clear-headed and rationalizing among the
   Reformers. [20] He did not pass through the discipline of monasticism
   and mysticism, like Luther, but through the liberal culture of Erasmus.
   He had no mystic vein, but sound, sober, practical common sense. He
   always preferred the plainest sense of the Bible. He rejected the
   Catholic views on original sin, infant damnation and the corporeal
   presence in the eucharist, and held advanced opinions which shocked
   Luther and even Calvin. But he nevertheless reverently bowed before the
   divine authority of the inspired Word of God, and had no idea of
   setting reason over it. His dispute with Luther was simply a question
   of interpretation, and he had strong arguments for his exegesis, as
   even the best Lutheran commentators must confess.

   Calvin was the best theologian and exegete among the Reformers. He
   never abused reason, like Luther, but assigned it the office of an
   indispensable handmaid of revelation. He constructed with his logical
   genius the severest system of Protestant orthodoxy which shaped French,
   Dutch, English and American theology, and fortified it against
   Rationalism as well as against Romanism. His orthodoxy and discipline
   could not keep his own church in Geneva from becoming Socinian in the
   eighteenth century, but he is no more responsible for that than Luther
   for the Rationalism of Germany, or Rome for the infidelity of Voltaire.
   Upon the whole, the Reformed churches in England, Scotland and North
   America, have been far less invaded by Rationalism than Germany.

   2. Let us now consider the application of the principle of free inquiry
   to the Bible. [21]

   The Bible, its origin, genuineness, integrity, aim, and all its
   circumstances and surroundings are proper subjects of investigation;
   for it is a human as well as a divine book, and has a history, like
   other literary productions. The extent of the Bible, moreover, or the
   Canon, is not determined by the Bible itself or by inspiration, but by
   church authority or tradition, and was not fully agreed upon till the
   close of the fourth century, and even then only by provincial synods,
   not by any of the seven oecumenical Councils. It was therefore justly
   open to reinvestigation.

   The Church of Rome, at the Council of Trent, settled the Canon,
   including the Apocrypha, but without any critical inquiry or definite
   theological principle; it simply confirmed the traditional usage, and
   pronounced an anathema on every one who does not receive all the books
   contained in the Latin Vulgate. [22] She also checked the freedom of
   investigation by requiring conformity to a defective version and a
   unanimous consensus of the fathers, although such an exegetical
   consensus does not exist except in certain fundamental doctrines.

   The Reformers re-opened the question of the extent of the Canon, as
   they had a right to do, but without any idea of sweeping away the
   traditional belief or undermining the authority of the Word of God. On
   the contrary, from the fulness of their faith in the inspired Word, as
   contained in the Scriptures, they questioned the canonicity of a few
   books which seem to be lacking in sufficient evidence to entitle them
   to a place in the Bible. They simply revived, in a new shape and on
   doctrinal rather than historical grounds, the distinction made by the
   Hebrews and the ancient fathers between the canonical and apocryphal
   books of the Old Testament, and the Eusebian distinction between the
   Homologumena and Antilegomena of the New Testament, and claimed in both
   respects the freedom of the ante-Nicene church.

   They added, moreover, to the external evidence, the more important
   internal evidence on the intrinsic excellency of the Scripture, as the
   true ground on which its authority and claim to obedience rests; and
   they established a firm criterion of canonicity, namely, the purity and
   force of teaching Christ and his gospel of salvation. They did not
   reject the testimonies of the fathers, but they placed over them what
   Paul calls the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. 2:4).

   Luther was the bold pioneer of a higher criticism, which was indeed
   subjective and arbitrary, but, after all, a criticism of faith. He made
   his central doctrine of justification by faith the criterion of
   canonicity. [23] He thus placed the material or subjective principle of
   Protestantism above the formal or objective principle, the truth above
   the witness of the truth, the doctrine of the gospel above the written
   Gospel, Christ above the Bible. Romanism, on the contrary, places the
   church above the Bible. But we must remember that Luther first learnt
   Christ from the Bible, and especially, from the Epistles of Paul, which
   furnished him the key for the understanding of the scheme of salvation.

   He made a distinction, moreover, between the more important and the
   less important books of the New Testament, according to the extent of
   their evangelic purity and force, and put Hebrews, James, Jude, and
   Revelation at the end of the German Bible. [24]

   He states his reason in the Preface to the Hebrews as follows:
   "Hitherto we have had the right and genuine books of the New Testament.
   The four that follow have been differently esteemed in olden times." He
   therefore appeals to the ante-Nicene tradition, but his chief objection
   was to the contents.

   He disliked, most of all, the Epistle of James because he could not
   harmonize it with Paul's teaching on justification by faith without
   works, [25] and he called it an epistle of straw as compared with the
   genuine apostolic writings. [26]

   He objected to the Epistle to the Hebrews because it seems to deny (in
   Heb. 6, 10 and 12) the possibility of repentance after baptism,
   contrary to the Gospels and to Paul, and betrays in 2:3, a
   post-apostolic origin. He ascribed the authorship to Apollos by an
   ingenious guess, which, though not supported by ancient tradition, has
   found great favor with modern commentators and critics, [27] chiefly
   because the authorship of any other possible writer (Paul, Barnabas,
   Luke, Clement) seems to offer insuperable difficulties, while the
   description of Apollos in Acts 18:24-28, compared with the allusions in
   1 Cor. 1:12; 3:6; 4:6; 16:12, seems to fit exactly the author of this
   anonymous Epistle.

   He called the Epistle of Jude an "unnecessary epistle," a mere extract
   from Second Peter and post-apostolic, filled with apocryphal matter,
   and hence rejected by the ancient fathers.

   He could at first find no sense in the mysteries of the Apocalypse and
   declared it to be "neither apostolic nor prophetic," because it deals
   only with images and visions, and yet, notwithstanding its obscurity,
   it adds threats and promises, "though nobody knows what it means"; but
   afterwards he modified his judgment when the Lutheran divines found in
   it welcome weapons against the church of Rome.

   The clearest utterance on this subject is found at the close of his
   preface to the first edition of his German version of the New Testament
   (1522), but it was suppressed in later editions. [28]

   Luther's view of inspiration was both strong and free. With the
   profoundest conviction of the divine contents of the Bible, he
   distinguished between the revealed truth itself and the human wording
   and reasoning of the writers. He says of one of the rabbinical
   arguments of his favorite apostle: "My dear brother Paul, this argument
   won't stick." [29]

   Luther was, however, fully aware of the subjective and conjectural
   character of these opinions, and had no intention of obtruding them on
   the church: hence he modified his prefaces in later editions. He judged
   the Scriptures from an exclusively dogmatic, and one-sidedly Pauline
   standpoint, and did not consider their gradual historical growth.

   A few Lutheran divines followed him in assigning a subordinate position
   to the seven Antilegomena of the New Testament; [30] but the Lutheran
   church, with a sound instinct, accepted for popular use the traditional
   catholic Canon (not even expressly excluding the Jewish Apocrypha), yet
   retained his arrangement of the books of the New Testament. [31] The
   Rationalists, of course, revived, intensified, and carried to excess
   the bold opinions of Luther, but in a spirit against which he would
   himself raise the strongest protest.

   The Reformed divines were more conservative than Luther in accepting
   the canonical books, but more decided in rejecting the Apocrypha of the
   Old Testament. The Reformed Confessions usually enumerate the canonical
   books.

   Zwingli objected only to the Apocalypse and made no doctrinal use of
   it, because he did not deem it an inspired book, written by the same
   John who wrote the fourth Gospel. [32] In this view he has many
   followers, but the severest critical school of our days (that of
   Tübingen) assigns it to the Apostle John. Wolfgang Musculus mentions
   the seven Antilegomena, but includes them in the general catalogue of
   the New Testament; and Oecolampadius speaks of six Antilegomena
   (omitting the Hebrews), as holding an inferior rank, but nevertheless
   appeals to their testimony. [33]

   Calvin had no fault to find with James and Jude, and often quotes
   Hebrews and Revelation as canonical books, though he wrote no
   commentary on Revelation, probably because he felt himself incompetent
   for the task. He is silent about Second and Third John. He denies,
   decidedly, the Pauline authorship, but not the canonicity, of Hebrews.
   [34] He is disposed to assign Second Peter to a pupil of Peter, who
   wrote under the auspices and by direction of the Apostle; but he guards
   in this case, also, against unfavorable inferences from the uncertainty
   of origin. [35]

   Calvin clearly saw the inconsistency of giving the Church the right of
   determining the canon after denying her right of making an article of
   faith. He therefore placed the Canon on the authority of God who bears
   testimony to it through the voice of the Spirit in the hearts of the
   believer. The eternal and inviolable truth of God, he says, is not
   founded on the pleasure and judgment of men, and can be as easily
   distinguished as light from darkness, and white from black. In the same
   line, Peter Vermilius denies that "the Scriptures take their authority
   from the Church. Their certitude is derived from God. The Word is older
   than the Church. The Spirit of God wrought in the hearts of the bearers
   and readers of the Word so that they recognized it to be truly divine."
   This view is clearly set forth in several Calvinistic Confessions. [36]
   In its exclusive form it is diametrically opposed to the maxim of
   Augustin, otherwise so highly esteemed by the Reformers: "I should not
   believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Church."
   [37] But the two kinds of evidence supplement each other. The human
   authority of tradition though not the final ground of belief, is
   indispensable as an historical witness of the genuineness and
   canonicity, and is of great weight in conflict with Rationalism. There
   is no essential antagonism between the Bible and the Church in the
   proper sense of the term. They are inseparable. The Church was founded
   by Christ and the apostles through the preaching of the living Word of
   God, and the founders of the Church are also the authors of the written
   Word, which continues to be the shining and guiding light of the
   Church; while the Church in turn is the guardian, preserver,
   translator, propagator, and expounder of the Bible.

   3. The liberal views of the Reformers on inspiration and the canon were
   abandoned after the middle of the sixteenth century, and were succeeded
   by compact and consolidated systems of theology. The evangelical
   scholasticism of the seventeenth century strongly resembles, both in
   its virtues and defects, the catholic scholasticism of the Middle Ages
   which systematized and contracted the patristic theology, except that
   the former was based on the Bible, the latter on church tradition. In
   the conflict with Romanism the Lutheran and Calvinistic scholastics
   elaborated a stiff, mechanical theory of inspiration in order to set an
   infallible book against an infallible pope. The Bible was identified
   with the Word of God, dictated to the sacred writers as the penmen of
   the Holy Ghost. Even the classical purity of style and the integrity of
   the traditional text, including the Massoretic punctuation, were
   asserted in the face of stubborn facts, which came to light as the
   study of the origin and history of the text advanced. The divine side
   of the Scriptures was exclusively dwelled upon, and the human and
   literary side was ignored or virtually denied. Hence the exegetical
   poverty of the period of Protestant scholasticism. The Bible was used
   as a repository of proof texts for previously conceived dogmas, without
   regard to the context, the difference between the Old and New
   Testaments, and the gradual development of the divine revelation in
   accordance with the needs and capacities of men.

   4. It was against this Protestant bibliolatry and symbololatry that
   Rationalism arose as a legitimate protest. It pulled down one dogma
   after another, and subjected the Bible and the canon to a searching
   criticism. It denies the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, except
   in a wider sense which applies to all works of genius, and treats them
   simply as a gradual evolution of the religious spirit of Israel and the
   primitive Christian Church. It charges them with errors of fact and
   errors of doctrine, and resolves the miracles into legends and myths.
   It questions the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch, the genuineness of
   the Davidic Psalms, the Solomonic writings, the prophecies of
   Deutero-Isaiah and Daniel, and other books of the Old Testament. It
   assigns not only the Eusebian Antilegomena, but even the Gospels, Acts,
   the Catholic Epistles, and several Pauline Epistles to the
   post-apostolic age, from a.d. 70 to 150.

   In its later developments, however, Rationalism has been obliged to
   retreat and make several concessions to orthodoxy. The canonical
   Gospels and Acts have gained by further investigation and discovery;
   [38] and the apostolic authorship of the four great Epistles of Paul to
   the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians and the Apocalypse of John is
   fully admitted by the severest school of criticism (that of Tübingen).
   A most important admission: for these five books teach or imply all the
   leading facts and truths of the gospel, and overthrow the very
   foundations of Rationalism. With the Christ of the Gospels, and the
   Apostle Paul of his acknowledged Epistles, Christianity is safe.

   Rationalism was a radical revolution which swept like a flood over the
   Continent of Europe. But it is not negative and destructive only. It
   has made and is still making valuable contributions to biblical
   philology, textual criticism, and grammatico-historical exegesis. It
   enlarges the knowledge of the conditions and environments of the Bible,
   and of all that belongs to the human and temporal side of Christ and
   Christianity. It cultivates with special zeal and learning the sciences
   of Critical Introduction, Biblical Theology, the Life of Christ, the
   Apostolic and post-Apostolic Ages.

   5. These acquisitions to exegetical and historical theology are a
   permanent gain, and are incorporated in the new evangelical theology,
   which arose in conflict with Rationalism and in defense of the positive
   Christian faith in the divine facts of revelation and the doctrines of
   salvation. The conflict is still going on with increasing strength, but
   with the sure prospect of the triumph of truth. Christianity is
   independent of all critical questions on the Canon, and of human
   theories of inspiration; else Christ would himself have written the
   Gospels, or commanded the Apostles to do so, and provided for the
   miraculous preservation and inspired translation of the text, . His
   "words are spirit, and are life." "The flesh profiteth nothing."
   Criticism and speculation may for a while wander away from Christ, but
   will ultimately return to Him who furnishes the only key for the
   solution of the problems of history and human life. "No matter," says
   the world-poet Goethe in one of his last utterances, "how much the
   human mind may progress in intellectual culture, in the science of
   nature, in ever-expanding breadth and depth: it will never be able to
   rise above the elevation and moral culture which shines in the
   Gospels."

   Notes.

   The famous close of the Preface of Luther's edition of the German New
   Testament was omitted in later editions, but is reprinted in Walch's
   ed. XIV. 104 sqq., and in the Erlangen Frankf. ed. LXIII. (or eleventh
   vol. of the Vermischte Deutsche Schriften), p. 114 sq. It is verbatim
   as follows:

   "Aus diesem allen kannst du nu recht urtheilen unter allen Büchern, und
   Unterschied nehmen, welchs die besten sind. Denn, naemlich, ist
   Johannis Evangelion, und St. Pauli Episteln, sonderlich die zu den
   Römern, und Sanct Peters erste Epistel der rechte Kern und Mark unter
   allen Büchern; welche auch billig die, ersten sein sollten, und einem
   jeglichen Christen zu rathen wäre, das er dieselben am ersten und
   allermeisten läse, und ihm durch täglich Lesen so gemein mächte, als
   das täglich Brod.

   "Denn in diesen findist [findest] du nicht viel Werk und Wunderthaten
   Christi beschrieben; du findist aber gar meisterlich ausgestrichen, wie
   der Glaube an Christum Sünd, Tod und Hölle überwindet, und das Leben,
   Gerechtigkeit und Seligkeit gibt. Welchs die rechte Art ist des
   Evangelii, wie du gehöret hast.

   "Denn wo ich je der eins mangeln sollt, der Werke oder der Predigt
   Christi, so wollt ich lieber der Werke denn seiner Predigt mangeln.
   Denn die Werke helfen mir nichts; aber seine Worte, die geben das
   Leben, wie er selbst sagt (Joh 5.V.51). Weil nu Johannes gar wenig
   Werke von Christo, aber gar viel seiner Predigt schreibt; wiederumb die
   andern drei Evangelisten viel seiner Werke, wenig seiner Worte
   beschreiben: ist Johannis Evangelion das einige zarte, recht(e)
   Hauptevangelion, und den andren dreien weit fürzuzichen und höher zu
   heben. Also auch Sanct Paulus und Petrus Episteln weit über die drei
   Evangelia Matthai, Marci und Lucä vorgehen.

   "Summa, Sanct Johannis Evangel. und seine erste Epistel, Sanct Paulus
   Epistel(n), sonderlich die zu den Römern, Galatern, Ephesern, und Sanct
   Peters erste Epistel. das sind die Bücher, die dir Christum zeigen, und
   alles lehren, das dir zu wissen noth und selig ist ob du sohon kein
   ander Buch noch Lehre nummer [nimmermehr] sehest and horist [hörest].
   Darumb ist Sanct Jakobs Epistel ein recht strohern(e) Epistel, gegen
   sie, denn sie doch kein(e) evangelisch(e) Art an ihr hat. Doch davon
   weiter in andern Vorreden."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [15] "I am the tradition" (la tradizione son io), said Pope Pius IX.,
   during the Vatican Council which substituted an infallible papacy for
   an infallible council, in conflict both with oecumenical councils and
   popes who officially denounced Pope Honorius III. as a Monotheletic
   heretic. See vol. IV. 500 sqq.

   [16] This charge is sanctioned by several papal Encyclicals; it is
   implied, negatively, in the Syllabus of Pius IX. (1864), and,
   positively, though cautiously, in the Encyclical of Leo XIII Immortale
   Dei (Nov. 1, 1885), which characterizes the Reformation movements
   (without naming them) as "those pernicious and deplorable revolutionary
   tendencies which were aroused in the sixteenth century, and which,
   after introducing confusion into Christendom, soon, by a natural
   course, entered the domain of philosophy, and from philosophy into all
   the lines of civil society. Hasak, in his book--Dr. M. Luther
   (Regensburg, 1881), takes as his motto: " Be reconciled to the Church
   of God, the old mother church, which, for these eighteen hundred years,
   has been the preserver of the eternal truth, before the bloody flood of
   atheism and the socialistic republic breaks upon us as a true judgment
   of the world."

   [17] "Scripturae sacrae testimoniis vel evidenti ratione," or
   "evidentissimis rationibus; in the German form, as repeated by him on
   the occasion, "durch Zeugnisse der heil. Schrift und durch helle
   Gründe."See Köstlin II. 452 sq. and 800. The words seem to assign to
   reason an independent position by, the side of the Scriptures, but in
   case of conflict Luther always allowed the decision to the Scriptures.

   [18] Briefe, ed. de Wette, III. 189: "Ego sane ... plus tota hebdomada
   in morte et inferno jactatus, ita ut toto corpore laesus adhuc tremam
   membris," etc. Comp. Luther's letters to Spalatin, July 10th and Aug.
   19th, 1527, l.c. III. 187, 191.

   [19] He called reason "the mistress of the devil,"" the ugly devil's
   bride,"" a poisonous beast with many dragons' heads," "God's bitterest
   enemy." The coarsest invective against this gift of God is found in the
   last sermon he preached at Wittenberg, in the year of his death (1546),
   on Rom. 12:3. He here represents reason as the fountain of gross and
   subtle idolatry, and says: Wucherei, Säuferei, Ehebruch, Mord,
   Todtschlag, etc., die kann man merken, und verstehet auch die Welt,
   dass sie Sünde sein; aber des Tuefels Braut, Ratio, die shöne Metze,
   fähret herein, und will klug sein, und was sie saget, meinet sie, es
   sei der heilige Geist; wer will da helfen? Weder Jurist, Medicus, noch
   König oder Kaiser. Denn es ist die höchste Hure die der Teufel hat!'
   And again:" Derohalben wie ein junger Gesell muss der bösen Lust
   wehren, ein Alter dem Geiz: also ist die Vernunft von Art und Natur
   eine, schädliche Hure."... " Die Vernunft ist und soll in der Taufe
   ersäuft sein."" Höre auf, du verfluchte Hure; willst du Meisterin sein
   über den Glauben, welcher sagt, dass im Abendmahl des Herrn sei der
   wahre Leib und das wahre Blut; item dass die Taufe nicht schlecht
   Wasser ist ... Diesem Glauben muss die Vernunft unterthan und gehorsam
   sein."And much of the same sort, with vehement denunciations of the
   Schwärmergeister and Sacramentirer (the sectaries and Zwinglians). See
   Werke, ed. Walch XII. col. 1530 sqq. It is noteworthy that Luther first
   abused reason in his book on the Slavery of the Human Will against the
   semi-Pelagianism of Erasmus. But his assaults on Aristotle and the
   scholastic theology began several years earlier, before 1517.

   [20] Luther felt this when he told him at Marburg: "You have a
   different spirit."

   [21] Comp. here the Critical Introductions to the Bible, and especially
   Reuss, Histoire du Canon des Saintes Écritures, Strasbourg, 1863. Ch.
   XVI. p. 308 sqq.; Hunter's Engl. transl. (1884) p. 290 sqq.

   [22] Sess. IV. (April 8th, 1546): "Si quis autem libros ipsos integros
   cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in ecclesia catholica legi
   consueverunt, et in veteri Vulgata Latina editione habentur, pro sacris
   et canonicis non susceperit et traditiones praedictas sciens et prudens
   contempserit, anathema sit." Schaff, Creeds II. 82. There were,
   however, protesting voices in the council: some desired to recognize
   the old distinction between Homologumena and Antilegomena; others
   simply an enumeration of the sacred books used in the Catholic church,
   without a dogmatic definition. Sarpi censures the council for its
   decision, and there are Catholic divines (as Sixtus Senensis, Du Pin,
   Jahn), who, in spite of the decision, make a distinction between
   protocanonical and deuterocanonical books.

   [23] "This," he says in the Preface to the Epistle of James, " is the
   true touchstone (der rechte Prüfstein) of all books, whether they make
   Christ their sole topic and aim" [literally " drive Christ,"Christum
   treiben], " or not; since all Scripture shows Christ (Rom. 3), and St.
   Paul wishes to know nothing but Christ (1 Cor. 2). That which does not
   teach Christ is not apostolic, though St. Peter and Paul should teach
   it; again, that which preaches Christ is apostolic, though Judas,
   Annas, Pilate and Herod should say it."The devil himself can quote
   Scripture.

   [24] In this distinction Carlstadt had preceded him in his book, De
   Canon. Scripturis (Wittenb. 1520, reprinted in Credner's Zur Gesch. des
   Kanons, 1847, p. 291-412). Carlstadt divided the books of the canon
   into three ordines: (1) libri summae dignitatis (the Pentateuch, though
   not written by Moses, and the Gospels); (2) secundae dignitatis (the
   Prophets and 15 Epistles); (3) tertiae dignitatis (the Jewish
   Hagiographa and the seven Antilegomena of the New Testament).

   [25] He rejects the epistle first of all, "because it gives
   righteousness to works in flat contradiction to Paul and all other
   Scriptures;" secondly, "because, while undertaking to teach Christian
   people, it does not once mention the passion, the resurrection, the
   Spirit of Christ; it names Christ twice, but teaches nothing about him;
   it calls the law a law of liberty, while Paul calls it a law of
   bondage, of wrath, of death and of sin." He offered his doctor's cap to
   any who could harmonize James and Paul on the subject of justification,
   and jests about the trouble Melanchthon took to do it. He made the
   contradiction unnecessarily stronger by inserting his allein (sola)
   before durch den Glauben in Rom. 3:28. He first attacked the Epistle of
   James in his book De Captivitate Babylonica, in 1520, where he calls it
   an epistle unworthy of the apostolical spirit. Carlstadt seems to have
   fallen out with Luther in the same year on this question; for he
   defended the Epistle against the frivola argumenta of a bonus sacerdos
   amicitiae nostrae (who can be no other than Luther), in his book De
   canonicis Scripturis, Wittenbergae, 1520.

   [26] The comparison must not be overlooked. He says: gegen sie, i.e.,
   as compared with the Epistles of Paul, Peter and John, previously
   mentioned. See the passage in full below. He could not be blind to the
   merits of James as a fresh, vigorous teacher of practical Christianity.

   [27] Bleek, de Wette, Tholuck, Lünemann, Kendrick (in Lange),
   Hilgenfeld, de Pressensé, Davidson, Alford, Farrar, and others.

   [28] See note at the end of this section. His Table Talk contains bold
   and original utterances on Esther, Ecclesiastes and other books of the
   Old Testament; see Reuss on the Canon, 330 sqq. While Luther on the one
   hand limited the canon, he seemed disposed on the other hand to extend
   it, when he declared Melanchthon's Loci Theologici to be worthy of a
   place in the canon. But this was merely an extravagant compliment.

   [29] Comp. his comments on the allegory of Sarah and Hagar in his Latin
   Com. on Gal. 3:25 (Erl. ed. II. 252).

   [30] Brentius, Flacius, Urbanus Regius, the authors of the Magdeburg
   Centuries, and Chemnitz.

   [31] None of the symbolical books of the Lutheran church gives a list
   of the canon, but the Formula of Concord (p. 570) declares that the
   "prophetica et apostolica scripta V. et N. T. " are the "unica regula
   et norma secundum quam omnia dogmata omnesque doctores aestimari et
   judicari opporteat."

   [32] "Us Apocalypsi nehmend wir kein Kundschafft an, denn es nit ein
   biblisch Buch ist." Werke, ed. Schuler and Schulthess, II. 1. p. 169.
   In another place he says: "Apocal. liber non sapit os et ingenium
   Joannis." De clar. Verbi Dei, p. 310.

   [33] See Reuss, p. 315 sq. Eng. ed.

   [34] In the introduction to his Com. on Hebrews: "Ego ut Paulum
   auctorem agnoscam adduci nequeo." His reasons are, the difference of
   style and of the docendi ratio, and because the writer counts himself
   with the disciples of the Apostles (Heb. 2:3); but nevertheless he
   accepts the book as inspired and canonical, because it more clearly
   than any other book treats of the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ.

   [35] In Argum. Ep. Sec. Petri, he notes "manifestum discrimen" between
   the first and second Epistle, and adds: "Sunt et aliae probabiles
   conjecturae ex quibus colligere licet alterius esse potius quam Petri,"
   but he sees in it, "nihil Petro indignum"

   [36] The Second Helvetic confession, c. 1 and 2, and the Belgic
   Confession, art. 5, combine the testimony of tradition and that of the
   Holy Spirit, but lay chief stress upon the latter. So the Gallican
   Conf., art. 4: "We know these books to be canonical and the sure rule
   of our faith, not so much by the common accord and consent of the
   church (non tant par le, commun a ord et consentement de l'eglise), as
   by the testimony and inward illumination of the Holy Spirit, which
   enables us to distinguish them from other ecclesiastical books, upon
   which, however useful, we cannot found any articles of faith." The
   Westminster Confession, ch. I. 4, sets aside the testimony of
   tradition, saying: "The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it
   ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of
   any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the
   Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the
   Word of God." The Scripture proofs given are, 2 Pet. 1:19, 21; 2 Tim.
   3:16; 1 John 5:9; 1 Thess. 2:13; but they have no bearing upon the
   question of canonicity.

   [37] "Ego evangelio non crederem, nisi me moveret ecclesiae
   auctoritas," Contra Ep. Fundam., c. 5. A thoroughly Roman catholic
   principle in opposition to the Manichaen heresy. But the testimony of
   the church is indispensable only in the history of the origin of the
   several books, and the formation of the canon.

   [38] Thus Mark is regarded by many Rationalists as the primitive Gospel
   based on Peter's sermons. Matthew has received valuable testimonies
   from the discovery of the Greek Barnabas who quotes him twice, and from
   the discovery of the Didache of the Apostles, which contains about
   twenty reminiscences from the first Gospel. On the Johannean question
   the Tübingen critics have been forced to retreat from 170 to 140, 120,
   110, almost to the life time of John. The Acts have received new
   confirmation of their historical credibility from the excavations in
   Cyprus and Ephesus, and the minute test of the nautical vocabulary of
   chapter 27 by an experienced seaman. On all these points see the
   respective sections in the first volume of this History, ch. XII. p.
   569 sqq.; 715 sqq.; 731 sqq; and 853 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 10. Protestantism and Denominationalism. [39]

   The Greek Church exists as a patriarchal hierarchy based on the first
   seven oecumenical Councils with four ancient local centres: Jerusalem,
   Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople; to which must be added, since
   1725, St. Petersburg where the Holy Synod of orthodox Russia resides.
   The patriarch of Constantinople claims a primacy of honor, but no
   supremacy of jurisdiction over his fellow-patriarchs.

   The Roman Church is an absolute monarchy, headed by an infallible pope
   who claims to be vicar of Christ over all Christendom and unchurches
   the Greek and the Protestant churches as schismatical and heretical.

   The Reformation came out of the bosom of the Latin Church and broke up
   the visible unity of Western Christendom, but prepared the way for a
   higher spiritual unity on the basis of freedom and the full development
   of every phase of truth.

   Instead of one organization, we have in Protestantism a number of
   distinct national churches and confessions or denominations. Rome, the
   local centre of unity, was replaced by Wittenberg, Zurich, Geneva,
   Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh. The one great pope had to surrender to
   many little popes of smaller pretensions, yet each claiming and
   exercising sovereign power in his domain. The hierarchical rule gave
   way to the caesaropapal or Erastian principle, that the owner of the
   territory is also the owner of its religion (cujus regio, ejus
   religio), a principle first maintained by the Byzantine Emperors, and
   held also by the Czar of Russia, but in subjection to the supreme
   authority of the oecumenical Councils. Every king, prince, and
   magistrate, who adopted the Reformation, assumed the ecclesiastical
   supremacy or summepiscopate, and established a national church to the
   exclusion of Dissenters or Nonconformists who were either expelled, or
   simply tolerated under various restrictions and disabilities.

   Hence there are as many national or state churches as there are
   independent Protestant governments; but all acknowledge the supremacy
   of the Scriptures as a rule of faith and practice, and most of them
   also the evangelical confessions as a correct summary of Scripture
   doctrines. Every little principality in monarchical Germany and every
   canton in republican Switzerland has its own church establishment, and
   claims sovereign power to regulate its creed worship, and discipline.
   And this power culminates not in the clergy, but in the secular ruler
   who appoints the ministers of religion and the professors of theology.
   The property of the church which had accumulated by the pious
   foundations of the Middle Ages, was secularized during the Reformation
   period and placed under the control of the state, which in turn assumed
   the temporal support of the church.

   This is the state of things in Europe to this day, except in the
   independent or free churches of more recent growth, which manage their
   own affairs on the voluntary principle.

   The transfer of the episcopal and papal power to the head of the state
   was not contemplated by the Reformers, but was the inevitable
   consequence of the determined opposition of the whole Roman hierarchy
   to the Reformation. The many and crying abuses which followed this
   change in the hands of selfish and rapacious princes, were deeply
   deplored by Melanchthon, who would have consented to the restoration of
   the episcopal hierarchy on condition of the freedom of gospel preaching
   and gospel teaching.

   The Reformed church in Switzerland secured at first a greater degree of
   independence than the Lutheran; for Zwingli controlled the magistrate
   of Zurich, and Calvin ruled supreme in Geneva under institutions of his
   own founding; but both closely united the civil and ecclesiastical
   power, and the former gradually assumed the supremacy.

   Scandinavia and England adopted, together with the Reformation, a
   Protestant episcopate which divides the ecclesiastical supremacy with
   the head of the state; yet even there the civil ruler is legally the
   supreme governor of the church.

   The greatest Protestant church-establisbments or national churches are
   the Church of England, much weakened by dissent, but still the richest
   and most powerful of all; the United Evangelical Church of Prussia
   which, since 1817, includes the formerly separated Lutheran and
   Reformed confessions; the Lutheran Church of Saxony (with a Roman
   Catholic king); the Lutheran Churches of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway;
   the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, and Holland; and the Reformed or
   Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

   Originally, all evangelical Protestant churches were embraced under two
   confessions or denominations, the Lutheran which prevailed and still
   prevails in Germany and Scandinavia, and the Reformed which took root
   in Switzerland, France, Holland, England and Scotland, and to a limited
   extent also in Germany, Bohemia and Hungary. The Lutheran church
   follows the larger portion of German and Scandinavian emigrants to
   America and other countries, the Reformed church in its various
   branches is found in all the Dutch and British colonies, and in the
   United States.

   From these two confessions should be distinguished the Anglican Church,
   which the continental historians from defective information usually
   count with the Reformed Church, but which stands midway between
   evangelical Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, and may therefore be
   called Anglo-Catholic. She is indeed moderately Reformed in her
   doctrinal articles, [40] but in polity and ritual she is much more
   conservative than the Calvinistic and even the Lutheran confession,
   pays greater deference to the testimony of the ancient fathers, and
   lays stress upon her unbroken episcopal succession.

   The confessional division in the Protestant camp arose very early. It
   was at first confined to a difference of opinion on the eucharistic
   presence, which the Marburg Conference of 1529 could not remove,
   although Luther and Zwingli agreed in fourteen and a half out of
   fifteen articles of faith. Luther refused any compromise. Other
   differences gradually developed themselves, on the ubiquity of Christ's
   body, predestination, and baptismal regeneration, which tended to widen
   and perpetuate the split. The union of the two Confessions in Prussia
   and other German states, since 1817, has not really healed it, but
   added a third Church, the United Evangelical, to the two older
   Confessions which, still continue separate in other countries.

   The controversies among the Protestants in the sixteenth century roused
   all the religious and political passions and cast a gloom over the
   bright picture of the Reformation. Melanchthon declared that with tears
   as abundant as the waters of the river Elbe he could not express his
   grief over the distractions of Christendom and the "fury of
   theologians." Calvin also, when invited, with Melanchthon, Bullinger
   and Buzer, in 1552, by Archbishop Cranmer to Lambeth Palace for the
   purpose of framing a concensus-creed of the Reformed churches, was
   willing to cross ten seas for the cause of Christian union. [41] But
   the noble scheme was frustrated by the stormy times, and still remains
   a pium desiderium.

   Much as we must deplore and condemn sectarian strife and bitterness, it
   would be as unjust to charge them on Protestantism, as to charge upon
   Catholicism the violent passions of the trinitarian, christological and
   other controversies of the Nicene age, or the fierce animosity between
   the Greek and Latin Churches, or the envy and jealousy of the monastic
   orders of the Middle Ages, or the unholy rivalries between Jansenists
   and Jesuits, Gallicans and Ultramontanists in modern Romanism. The
   religious passions grow out of the selfishness of depraved human nature
   in spite of Christianity, whether Greek, Roman, or Protestant., and may
   arise in any denomination or in any congregation. Paul had to rebuke
   the party spirit in the church at Corinth. The rancor of theological
   schools and parties under one and the same government is as great and
   often greater than among separate rival denominations. Providence
   overrules these human weaknesses for the clearer development of
   doctrine and discipline, and thus brings good out of evil.

   The tendency of Protestantism towards individualism did not stop with
   the three Reformation Churches, but produced other divisions wherever
   it was left free to formulate and organize the differences of
   theological parties and schools. This was the case in England, in
   consequence of what may be called a second Reformation, which agitated
   that country during the seventeenth century, while Germany was passing
   through the horrors of the Thirty Years' War.

   The Toleration Act of 1689, after the final overthrow of the
   semi-popish and treacherous dynasty of the Stuarts, gave the Dissenters
   who were formerly included in the Church of England, the liberty to
   organize themselves into independent denominations under the names of
   Presbyterians, Independents or Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers;
   all professing the principles of the Reformation, but differing in
   minor points of doctrine, and especially in discipline, and the mode of
   worship.

   The Methodist revival of religion which shook England and the American
   colonies during the eighteenth century, gave rise to a new denomination
   which spread with the enthusiasm of an army of conquest and grew into
   one of the largest and most influential communions in English-speaking
   Christendom.

   In Scotland, the original unity of the Reformed Kirk was likewise
   broken up, mostly on the question of patronage and the sole headship of
   Christ, so that the Scotch population is now divided chiefly into three
   branches, the Established Church, the United Presbyterian Church, and
   the Free Church of Scotland; all holding, however, to the Westminster
   standards.

   In Germany, the Moravian brotherhood acquired a legal existence, and
   fully earned it by its missionary zeal among the heathen, its
   educational institutions, its pure discipline and stimulating influence
   upon the older churches.

   All these Churches of Great Britain and the Continent were transplanted
   by emigration to the virgin soil of North America, where they mingle on
   a basis of equality before the law and in the enjoyment of perfect
   religious freedom. But few communions are of native growth. In America,
   the distinction between church and sect, churchmen and dissenters, has
   lost its legal meaning. And even in Europe it is weakened in the same
   proportion in which under the influence of modern ideas of toleration
   and freedom the bond of union of church and state is relaxed, and the
   sects or theological parties are allowed to organize themselves into
   distinct communities.

   Thus Protestantism in the nineteenth century is divided into half a
   dozen or more large denominations, without counting the minor divisions
   which are even far more numerous. The Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the
   Presbyterians, the Congregationalists, the Methodists, and the
   Baptists, are distinct and separate families. Nor is the centrifugal
   tendency of Protestantism exhausted, and may produce new denominations,
   especially in America, where no political power can check its progress.

   To an outside spectator, especially to a Romanist and to an infidel,
   Protestantism presents the aspect of a religious chaos or anarchy which
   must end in dissolution.

   But a calm review of the history of the last three centuries and the
   present condition of Christendom leads to a very different conclusion.
   It is an undeniable fact that Christianity has the strongest hold upon
   the people and displays the greatest vitality and energy at home and
   abroad, in English-speaking countries, where it is most divided into
   denominations and sects. A comparison of England with Spain, or
   Scotland with Portugal, or the United States with Mexico and Peru or
   Brazil, proves the advantages of living variety over dead uniformity.
   Division is an element of weakness in attacking a consolidated foe, but
   it also multiplies the missionary, educational, and converting
   agencies. Every Protestant denomination has its own field of
   usefulness, and the cause of Christianity itself would be seriously
   weakened and contracted by the extinction of any one of them.

   Nor should we overlook the important fact, that the differences which
   divide the various Protestant denominations are not fundamental, and
   that the articles of faith in which they agree are more numerous than
   those in which they disagree. All accept the inspired Scriptures as the
   supreme rule of faith and practice, salvation by grace, and we may say
   every article of the Apostles' Creed; while in their views of practical
   Christianity they unanimously teach that our duties are comprehended in
   the royal law of love to God and to our fellow-men, and that true piety
   and virtue consist in the imitation of the example of Christ, the Lord
   and Saviour of all.

   There is then unity in diversity as well as diversity in unity.

   And the tendency to separation and division is counteracted by the
   opposite tendency to Christian union and denominational intercommunion
   which manifests itself in a rising degree and in various forms among
   Protestants of the present day, especially in England and America, and
   on missionary fields, and which is sure to triumph in the end. The
   spirit of narrowness, bigotry and exclusiveness must give way at last
   to a spirit of evangelical catholicity, which leaves each denomination
   free to work out its own mission according to its special charisma, and
   equally free to co-operate in a noble rivalry with all other
   denominations for the glory of the common Master and the building up of
   His Kingdom.

   The great problem of Christian union cannot be solved by returning to a
   uniformity of belief and outward organization. Diversity in unity and
   unity in diversity is the law of God in history as well as in nature.
   Every aspect of truth must be allowed room for free development. Every
   possibility of Christian life must be realized. The past cannot be
   undone; history moves zig-zag, like a sailing vessel, but never
   backwards. The work of church history, whether Greek, Roman, or
   Protestant, cannot be in vain. Every denomination and sect has to
   furnish some stones for the building of the temple of God.

   And out of the greatest human discord God will bring the richest
   concord.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [39] Denominationalism is, I believe, an American term of recent
   origin, but useful and necessary to express the fact, without praise or
   blame, that Protestant Christianity exists in various ecclesiastical
   organizations, some of which are large, others small, some differing in
   doctrine, others only in polity and worship, some liberal and catholic,
   others contracted and exclusive. I use it in this neutral sense, in
   preference to Confessionalism which implies confessional or doctrinal
   difference, and Sectarianism which implies bigotry and is a term of
   reproach.

   [40] The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, as revised under Elizabeth
   (1563 and 1571), are borrowed in part, verbatim, from the Augsburg
   Confession of 1530 and the Würtemberg Confession of 1552, but are
   moderately Calvinistic in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, and on
   predestination; the five Lambeth Articles of 1595, and the Irish
   Articles of Archbishop Ussher (1615) are strongly Calvinistic, and the
   latter furnished the basis of the Westminster Confession. But the
   Lambeth Articles and the Irish Articles were gradually forgotten, and
   the Book of Common Prayer which is based on the office of Sarum, has
   practically much greater influence than even the Thirty-nine Articles.
   See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom vol. I. 624 sqq., 630 sqq., 658 sqq.,
   662 sqq.

   [41] See the correspondence in Cranmer's Works publ. by the Parker
   Society, Vol.II. 430-433.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 11. Protestantism and Religious Liberty.

   Comp. Ph. Schaff: The Progress of Religious Freedom as shown in the
   History of Toleration Acts, N. York, 1889. (126 pages.)

   The Reformation was a grand act of emancipation from spiritual tyranny,
   and a vindication of the sacred rights of conscience in matters of
   religious belief. Luther's bold stand at the Diet of Worms, in the face
   of the pope and the emperor, is one of the sublimest events in the
   history of liberty, and the eloquence of his testimony rings through
   the centuries. [42] To break the force of the pope, who called himself
   and was believed to be, the visible vicar of God on earth, and who held
   in his hands the keys of the kingdom of heaven, required more moral
   courage than to fight a hundred battles, and it was done by an humble
   monk in the might of faith.

   If liberty, both civil and religious, has since made progress, it is
   due in large measure to the inspiration of that heroic act. But the
   progress was slow and passed through many obstructions and reactions.
   "The mills of God grind slowly, but wonderfully fine."

   It seems one of the strangest inconsistencies that the very men who
   claimed and exercised the right of protest in essentials, should have
   denied the same right to others, who differed from them in
   nonessentials. After having secured liberty from the yoke of popery,
   they acted on the persecuting principles in which they had been brought
   up. They had no idea of toleration or liberty in our modern sense. They
   fought for liberty in Christ, not from Christ, for liberty to preach
   and teach the gospel, not to oppose or pervert it. They were as
   intensely convinced of their views as their Roman opponents of theirs.
   They abhorred popery and heresy as dangerous errors which should not be
   tolerated in a Christian society. John Knox feared one Romish mass in
   Scotland more than an army of ten thousand French invaders. The
   Protestant divines and princes of the sixteenth century felt it to be
   their duty to God and to themselves to suppress and punish heresy as
   well as civil crimes. They confounded the law with the gospel. In many
   cases they acted in retaliation, and in self-defense. They were
   surrounded by a swarm of sects and errorists who claimed to be the
   legitimate children of the Reformation, exposed it to the reproach of
   the enemies and threatened to turn it into confusion and anarchy. The
   world and the church were not ripe for a universal reign of liberty,
   nor are they even now.

   Religious persecution arises not only from bigotry and fanaticism, and
   the base passions of malice, hatred and uncharitableness, but also from
   mistaken zeal for truth and orthodoxy, from the intensity of religious
   conviction, and from the alliance of religion with politics or the
   union of church and state, whereby an offence against the one becomes
   an offence against the other. Persecution is found in all religions,
   churches and sects which had the power; while on the other hand all
   persecuted religions, sects, and parties are advocates of toleration
   and freedom, at least for themselves. Some of the best as well as the
   worst men have been persecutors, believing that they served the cause
   of God by fighting his enemies. Saul of Tarsus, and Marcus Aurelius,
   the Stoic saint and philosopher on the throne of the Caesars, have in
   ignorance persecuted Christianity, the one from zeal for the law of
   Moses, the other from devotion to the laws and gods of Rome.
   Charlemagne thought he could best promote Christianity among the
   heathen Saxons by chasing them through the river for wholesale baptism.
   St. Augustin, Thomas Aquinas, and Calvin were equally convinced of the
   right and duty of the civil magistrate to punish heresy. A religion or
   church established by law must be protected by law against its enemies.
   The only sure guarantee against persecution is to put all churches on
   an equal footing before the law, and either to support all or none.

   Church history is lurid with the infernal fires of persecutions, not
   only of Christians by heathens and Mohammedans, but of Christians by
   Christians.

   But there is a silver lining to every cloud, and an overruling
   Providence in all human wickedness. The persecutions test character,
   develop moral heroism, bring out the glories of martyrdom, and sow the
   bloody seed of religious liberty. They fail of their object when the
   persecuted party has the truth on its side, and ultimately result in
   its victory. This was the case with Christianity in the Roman empire,
   and to a large extent with Protestantism. They suffered the cross, and
   reaped the crown.

   Let us now briefly survey the chief stages in the history of
   persecution, which is at the same time a history of religious liberty.

   1. The New Testament furnishes not a single passage in favor of
   persecution. The teaching and example of Christ and the Apostles are
   against it. He came to save the world, not to destroy it. He declared
   that His kingdom is not of this world. He rebuked the hasty Peter for
   drawing the sword, though it was in defense of his Master; and he
   preferred to suffer and to die rather than to call the angels of God to
   aid against his enemies. The Apostles spread the gospel by spiritual
   means and condemned the use of carnal weapons.

   For three hundred years the church followed their example and advocated
   freedom of conscience. She suffered persecution from Jews and Gentiles,
   but never retaliated, and made her way to triumph through the power of
   truth and a holy life sealed by a heroic death. [43]

   2. The change began with the union of church and state under
   Constantine the Great, in the East, and Charles the Great, in the West.
   Both these emperors represent the continuation of the old Roman empire
   under the dominion of the sword and the cross.

   The mediaeval theory of the Catholic Church assumes a close alliance of
   Caesar and Pope, or the civil and ecclesiastical power, in Christian
   countries, and the exclusiveness of the Catholic communion out of which
   there can be no salvation. The Athanasian Creed has no less than three
   damning clauses against all who dissent from the orthodox doctrine of
   the Trinity and the Incarnation. From this point of view every heresy,
   i.e., every departure from catholic orthodoxy, is a sin and a crime
   against society, and punishable both by the church and the state,
   though in different ways. "The church does not thirst for blood " [44]
   but excommunicates the obstinate heretic and hands him over to the
   civil magistrate to be dealt with according to law. And the laws of
   pagan Rome and Christian Rome were alike severe against every open
   dissent from the state religion. The Mosaic legislation against
   idolatry and blasphemy, which were punished by death, as a crime
   against the theocracy and as treason against Jehovah, [45] seemed to
   afford divine authority for similar enactments under the Christian
   dispensation, in spite of the teaching and example of Christ and his
   Apostles. The Christian emperors after Constantine persecuted the
   heathen religion and heretical sects, as their heathen predecessors had
   persecuted the Christians as enemies of the national gods. The
   Justinian code, which extended its influence over the whole Continent
   of Europe, declares Christian heretics and schismatics, as well as
   Pagans and Jews, incapable of holding civil or military offices,
   forbids their public assemblies and ecclesiastical acts, and orders
   their books to be burned.

   The leading divines of the church gave sanction to this theory. St.
   Augustin, who had himself been a heretic for nine years, was at first
   in favor of toleration. [46] But during the Donatist controversy, he
   came to the conclusion that the correction and coërcion of heretics and
   schismatics was in some cases necessary and wholesome. His tract on the
   Correction of the Donatists was written about 417, to show that the
   schismatical and fanatical Donatists should be subjected to the
   punishment of the imperial laws. He admits that it is better that men
   should be led to worship God by teaching than be driven to it by fear
   of punishment or pain; but he reasons that more men are corrected by
   fear. He derives the proof from the Old Testament. The only passages
   from the New Testament which he is able to quote, would teach a
   compulsory salvation rather than punishment, but are really not to the
   point. He refers to Paul's conversion as a case of compulsion by Christ
   himself, and misapplies the word of our Lord in the parable of the
   Supper: "Constrain them to come in." [47] Yet he professed, on the
   other hand, the correct principle that "no man can believe against his
   will." [48] And he expressly discouraged the infliction of the
   death-penalty on heretics. [49]

   Thomas Aquinas, next to Augustin, the highest authority among the
   canonized doctors of the Latin church, went a step further. He proved,
   to the satisfaction of the Middle Ages, that the rites of idolaters,
   Jews, and infidels ought not to be tolerated, [50] and that heretics or
   corruptors of the Christian faith, being worse criminals than debasers
   of money, ought (after due admonition) not only to be excommunicated by
   the church, but also be put to death by the state. [51] He does not
   quote a Bible passage in favor of the death-penalty of heretics; on the
   contrary he mentions three passages which favor toleration of heretics,
   2 Tim. 2:24; 1 Cor. 11:19; Matt. 13:29, 30, and then tries to deprive
   them of their force by his argument drawn from the guilt of heresy.

   The persecution of heretics reached its height in the papal crusades
   against the Albigenses under Innocent III., one of the best of popes;
   in the dark deeds of the Spanish Inquisition; and in the unspeakable
   atrocities of the Duke of Alva against the Protestants in the
   Netherlands during his short reign (1567-1573). [52]

   The horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew (Aug. 24, 1572) was sanctioned
   by Pope Gregory XIII., who celebrated it by public thanksgivings, and
   with a medal bearing his image, an avenging angel and the inscription,
   Ugonottorum strages. [53]

   The infamous dragonnades of Louis XIV. were a continuation of the same
   politico-ecclesiastical policy on a larger scale, aiming at the
   complete destruction of Protestantism in France, in violation of the
   solemn edict of his grandfather (1598, revoked 1685), and met the full
   approval of the Roman clergy, including Bishop Bossuet, the advocate of
   Gallican liberties. [54]

   The most cruel of the many persecutions of the innocent Waldenses in
   the valleys of Piedmont took place in 1655, and shocked by its
   boundless violence the whole Protestant world, calling forth the
   vigorous protest of Cromwell and inspiring the famous sonnet of Milton,
   his foreign secretary:


   "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

   Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,

   Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

   When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones."

   These persecutions form the darkest, we may say, the satanic chapters
   in church history, and are a greater crime against humanity and
   Christianity than all the heresies which they in vain tried to
   eradicate.

   The Roman church has never repented of her complicity with these
   unchristian acts. On the contrary, she still holds the principle of
   persecution in connection with her doctrine that there is no salvation
   outside of her bosom. The papal Syllabus of 1864 expressly condemns,
   among the errors of modern times, the doctrine of religious toleration.
   [55] Leo XIII., a great admirer of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas,
   in his Encyclical of Nov. 1, 1885, "concerning the Christian
   constitution of states," wisely moderates, but reaffirms, in substance,
   the political principles of his predecessor. [56] A revocation would be
   fatal to the Vatican dogma of papal infallibility. The practice of
   persecution is a question of power and expediency; and although
   isolated cases still occur from time to time, [57] the revival of
   mediaeval intolerance is an impossibility, and would be condemned by
   intelligent and liberal Roman Catholics as a folly and a crime.

   3. The Protestant theory and practice of persecution and toleration.

   (a) The Lutheran Reformers and Churches.

   Luther was the most advanced among the Reformers in the ideas of
   toleration and liberty. He clearly saw the far-reaching effect of his
   own protest against Rome, and during his storm- and pressure-period,
   from 1517 to 1521, he was a fearless champion of liberty. He has left
   some of the noblest utterances against coërcion in matters of
   conscience, which contain almost every essential feature of the modern
   theory on the subject. He draws a sharp line between the temporal power
   which is confined to the body and worldly goods, and the spiritual
   government which belongs to God. He says that "no one can command or
   ought to command the soul, except God, who alone can show it the way to
   heaven;" that "the thoughts and mind of man are known only to God;"
   that "it is futile and impossible to command, or by force to compel any
   man's belief;" that "heresy is a spiritual thing which no iron can hew
   down, no fire burn, no water drown;" that "belief is a free thing which
   cannot be enforced." [58] He opposed the doctrine of the Anabaptists
   with every argument at his command, but disapproved the cruel
   persecution to which they were subjected in Protestant as well as
   Catholic countries. "It is not right," he said in a book against them
   (1528), "and I deeply regret that such wretched people should be so
   miserably murdered, burned, and cruelly put to death; every one should
   be allowed to believe what he pleases. If he believes wrongly, he will
   have punishment enough in the eternal fire of hell. Why should they be
   tortured in this life also?" [59] If heretics were to be punished by
   death, the hangman would be the best (the most orthodox) theologian. "I
   can in no way admit," he wrote to his friend Link in 1528, "that false
   teachers should be put to death: it is enough that they should be
   banished ." [60]

   To this extent, then, he favored punishment of heretics, but no
   further. He wanted them to be silenced or banished by the government.
   He spent his violence in words, in which he far outstripped friends and
   foes, and spared neither papists, nor Zwinglians, nor Anabaptists, nor
   even temporal princes like Henry VIII., Duke George of Saxony, and Duke
   Henry of Brunswick. [61] But his acts of intolerance are few. He
   refused the hand of fellowship to Zwingli, and would not have tolerated
   him at Wittenberg. He begged the elector, John, to prevent a certain
   Hans Mohr from spreading Zwinglian opinions in Coburg. He regretted the
   toleration of the Zwinglians in Switzerland after their defeat, which
   he uncharitably interpreted as a righteous judgment of God. [62]

   A few words on his views concerning the toleration of the Jews who had
   to suffer every indignity from Christians, as if they were personally
   responsible for the crime of the crucifixion. Luther was at first in
   advance of public opinion. In 1523 he protested against the cruel
   treatment of the Jews, as if they were dogs, and not human beings, and
   counseled kindness and charity as the best means of converting them. If
   the apostles, he says, who were Jews, had dealt with the heathen, as we
   heathen Christians deal with the Jews, no heathen would ever have been
   converted, and I myself, if I were a Jew, would rather become anything
   else than a Christian. [63] But in 1543 he wrote two violent books
   against the Jews. [64] His intercourse with several Rabbis filled him
   with disgust and indignation against their pride, obstinacy and
   blasphemies. He came to the conclusion that it was useless to dispute
   with them and impossible to convert them. Moses could do nothing with
   Pharaoh by warnings, plagues and miracles, but had to let him drown in
   the Red Sea. The Jews would crucify their expected Messiah, if he ever
   should come, even worse than they crucified the Christian Messiah. They
   are a blind, hard, incorrigible race. [65] He went so far as to advise
   their expulsion from Christian lands, the prohibition of their books,
   and the burning of their synagogues and even their houses in which they
   blaspheme our Saviour and the Holy Virgin. In the last of his sermons,
   preached shortly before his death at Eisleben, where many Jews were
   allowed to trade, he concluded with a severe warning against the Jews
   as dangerous public enemies who ought not to be tolerated, but left the
   alternative of conversion or expulsion. [66]

   Melanchthon, the mildest of the Reformers, went--strange to say--a step
   further than Luther, not during his lifetime, but eight years after his
   death, and expressly sanctioned the execution of Servetus for blasphemy
   in the following astounding letter to Calvin, dated Oct. 14, 1554:
   "Reverend sir and dearest brother: I have read your work in which you
   have lucidly refuted the horrible blasphemies of Servetus, and I thank
   the Son of God, who has been the arbiter (brabeuthv") of this your
   contest. The church, both now and in all generations, owes and will owe
   you a debt of gratitude. I entirely assent to your judgment. (Tuo
   judicio prorsus adsentior.) And I say, too, that your magistrates did
   right in that, after solemn trial, they put the blasphemer (hominem
   blasphemum) to death." [67] He expressed here his deliberate conviction
   to which he adhered. Three years later, in a warning against the errors
   of Theobald Thammer, he called the execution of Servetus "a pious and
   memorable example to all posterity." [68] We cannot tell what Luther
   might have said in this case had he lived at that time. It is good for
   his reputation that he was spared the trial. [69]

   The other Lutheran Reformers agreed essentially with the leaders. They
   conceded to the civil ruler the control over the religious as well as
   political opinions of their subjects. Martin Bucer went furthest in
   this direction and taught in his "Dialogues" (1535) the right and the
   duty of Christian magistrates to reform the church, to forbid and
   punish popish idolatry, and all false religions, according to the full
   rigor of the Mosaic law. [70]

   In accordance with these views of the Lutheran Reformers the Roman
   Catholics in Lutheran countries were persecuted, not, indeed, by
   shedding their blood as the blood of Protestants was shed in Roman
   Catholic countries, but by the confiscation of their church property,
   the prohibition of their worship, and, if it seemed necessary, by
   exile. In the reorganization of the church in Electoral Saxony in 1528,
   under the direction of the Wittenberg Reformers, the popish priests
   were deprived of their benefices, and even obstinate laymen were forced
   to sell their property and to leave their country. "For," said the
   Elector, "although it is not our intention to bind any one to what he
   is to believe and hold, yet will we, for the prevention of mischievous
   tumult and other inconveniences, suffer neither sect nor separation in
   our territory." [71]

   The Protestant dissenters fared no better in Lutheran Saxony. The
   Philippists (Melanchthonians) or Crypto-Calvinists were outlawed, and
   all clergymen, professors and school teachers who would not subscribe
   the Formula of Concord, were deposed (1580). Dr. Caspar Peucer,
   Melanchthon's son-in-law, professor of medicine at Wittenberg and
   physician to the Elector Augustus of Saxony, was imprisoned for ten
   years (1576-1586) for no other crime than "Philippism" (i.e.
   Melanchthonianism), and Nicolas Crell, the chancellor of Saxony, was,
   after ten years' confinement, beheaded at Dresden for favoring
   Crypto-Calvinism at home and supporting the Huguenots abroad, which was
   construed as high treason (1601). [72] Since that time the name of
   Calvin was as much hated in Saxony as the name of the Pope and the
   Turk. [73]

   In other Lutheran countries, Zwinglians and Calvinists fared no better.
   John a Lasco, the Reformer of Poland and minister of a Protestant
   congregation in London, when fleeing with his followers, including many
   women and children, from the persecution of the bloody Mary, was not
   allowed a resting place at Copenhagen, or Rostock, or Lübeck, or
   Hamburg, because he could not accept the Lutheran doctrine of the real
   presence, and the poor fugitives were driven from port to port in cold
   winter, till at last they found a temporary home at Emden (1553). [74]

   In Scandinavia every religion except the Lutheran was forbidden on pain
   of confiscation and exile, and these laws were in force till the middle
   of the nineteenth century. Queen Christina lost her Swedish crown by
   her apostasy from Lutheranism, which her father had so heroically
   defended in the Thirty Years' War.

   (b) The Swiss Reformers, though republicans, were not behind the
   Germans in intolerance against Romanists and heretics.

   Zwingli extended the hand of brotherhood to Luther, and hoped to meet
   even the nobler heathen in heaven, but had no mercy on the Anabaptists,
   who threatened to overthrow his work in Zürich. After trying in vain to
   convince them by successive disputations, the magistrate under his
   control resorted to the Cruel irony of drowning their leaders (six in
   all) in the Limmat near the lake of Zürich (between 1527 and 1532).
   [75]

   Zwingli counselled, at the risk of his own life, the forcible
   introduction of the Reformed religion into the territory of the
   Catholic Forest Cantons (1531); forgetting the warning of Christ to
   Peter, that they who take the sword shall perish by the sword. [76]

   Calvin has the misfortune rather than the guilt of pre-eminence for
   intolerance among the Reformers. He and Servetus are the best abused
   men of the sixteenth century; and the depreciation of the good name of
   the one and the exculpation of the bad name of the other have been
   carried far beyond the limits of historic truth and justice. Both must
   be judged from the standpoint of the sixteenth, not of the nineteenth,
   century.

   The fatal encounter of the champion of orthodoxy and the champion of
   heresy, men of equal age, rare genius, and fervent zeal for the
   restoration of Christianity, but direct antipodes in doctrine, spirit
   and aim, forms the most thrilling tragedy in the history of the
   Reformation. The contrast between the two is almost as great as that
   between Simon Peter and Simon Magus. [77] Their contest will never lose
   its interest. The fires of the funeral pile which were kindled at
   Champel on the 27th of October, 1553, are still burning and cast their
   lurid sparks into the nineteenth century.

   Leaving the historical details and the doctrinal aspect for another
   chapter, [78] we confine ourselves here to the bearing of the case on
   the question of toleration.

   Impartial history must condemn alike the intolerance of the victor and
   the error of the victim, but honor in both the strength of conviction.
   Calvin should have contented himself with banishing his fugitive rival
   from the territory of Geneva, or allowing him quietly to proceed on his
   contemplated journey to Italy, where he might have resumed his practice
   of medicine in which he excelled. But he sacrificed his future
   reputation to a mistaken sense of duty to the truth and the cause of
   the Reformation in Switzerland and his beloved France, where his
   followers were denounced and persecuted as heretics. He is responsible,
   on his own frank confession, for the arrest and trial of Servetus, and
   he fully assented to his condemnation and death "for heresy and
   blasphemy," except that he counselled the magistrate, though in vain,
   to mitigate the legal penalty by substituting the sword for the fire.
   [79]

   But the punishment was in accordance with the mediaeval laws and
   wellnigh universal sentiment of Catholic and Protestant Christendom; it
   was unconditionally counselled by four Swiss magistrates which had been
   consulted before the execution (Zurich, Berne, Basel, and
   Schaffhausen), and was expressly approved by all the surviving
   reformers: Bullinger, Farel, Beza, Peter Martyr, and (as we have
   already seen) even by the mild and gentle Melanchthon. And strange to
   say, Servetus himself held, in part at least, the theory under which he
   suffered: for he admitted that incorrigible obstinacy and malice
   deserved death, [80] referring to the case of Ananias and Sapphira;
   while schism and heresy should be punished only by excommunication and
   exile.

   Nor should we overlook the peculiar aggravation of the case. We may now
   put a more favorable construction on Servetus' mystic and pantheistic
   or panchristic Unitarianism than his contemporaries, who seemed to have
   misunderstood him, friends as well as foes; but he was certainly a
   furious fanatic and radical heretic, and in the opinion of all the
   churches of his age a reckless blasphemer, aiming at the destruction of
   historic Christianity. He was thus judged from his first book (1531),
   [81] as well as his last (1553), [82] and escaped earlier death only by
   concealment, practicing medicine under a fictitious name and the
   protection of a Catholic archbishop. He had abused all trinitarian
   Christians, as tritheists and atheists; he had denounced the orthodox
   doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as a dream of St. Augustin, a fiction of
   popery, an invention of the devil, and a three-headed Cerberus. [83] He
   had attacked with equal fury infant-baptism, as a detestable
   abomination, a killing of the Holy Spirit, an abolition of
   regeneration, and overthrow of the entire kingdom of Christ, and
   pronounced a woe on all baptizers of infancy who close the kingdom of
   heaven against mankind. He had been previously condemned to the stake
   by the Roman Catholic tribunal of the inquisition, after a regular
   trial, in the archiepiscopal city of Vienne in France, partly on the
   ground of his letters to Calvin procured from Geneva, and burned in
   effigy with his last book after his escape. He then rushed blindly into
   the hands of Calvin, whom he denounced, during the trial, as a liar, a
   hypocrite, and a Simon Magus, with a view, apparently, to overthrow his
   power, in league with his enemies, the party of the Libertines, which
   had then the majority in the council of Geneva. [84]

   Considering all these circumstances Calvin's conduct is not only
   explained, but even justified in part. He acted in harmony with the
   public law and orthodox sentiment of his age, and should therefore not
   be condemned more than his contemporaries, who would have done the same
   in his position. [85]

   But all the humane sentiments are shocked again by the atrocity, of the
   execution; while sympathy is roused for the unfortunate sufferer who
   died true to his conviction, reconciled to his enemies, and with the
   repeated prayer in the midst of the flames: "Jesus, thou Son of the
   eternal God, have mercy upon me!"

   The enemies of Calvin raised, in anonymous and pseudonymous pamphlets,
   a loud protest against the new tribunal of popery and inquisition in
   Geneva, which had boasted to be an asylum of all the persecuted. The
   execution of Servetus was condemned by his anti-trinitarian
   sympathizers, especially the Italian refugees in Switzerland, and also
   by some orthodox Christians in Basel and elsewhere, who feared that it
   would afford a powerful argument to the Romanists for their persecution
   of Protestants.

   Calvin felt it necessary, therefore, to come out with a public defense
   of the death-penalty for heresy, in the spring of 1554. [86] He
   appealed to the Mosaic law against idolatry and blasphemy, to the
   expulsion of the profane traffickers from the temple-court (Matt.
   21:12), and he tries to refute the arguments for toleration which were
   derived from the wise counsel of Gamaliel (Acts 5:34), the parable of
   the tares among the wheat (Matt. 13:29), and Christ's rebuke of Peter
   for drawing the sword (Matt. 26:52). The last argument he disposes of
   by making a distinction between private vengeance and public
   punishment.

   Beza also defended, with his usual ability, in a special treatise, the
   punishment of heretics, chiefly as a measure of self-defense of the
   state which had a right to give laws and a duty to protect religion. He
   derived the doctrine of toleration from scepticism and infidelity and
   called it a diabolical dogma. [87]

   The burning of the body of Servetus did not destroy his soul. His blood
   was the fruitful seed of the doctrine of toleration and the Unitarian
   heresy, which assumed an organized form in the Socinian sect, and
   afterward spread in many orthodox churches, including Geneva.

   Fortunately the tragedy of 1553 was the last spectacle of burning a
   heretic in Switzerland, though several years later the
   Anti-trinitarian, Valentine Gentile, was beheaded in Berne (1566).

   (c) In France the Reformed church, being in the minority, was violently
   and systematically persecuted by the civil rulers in league with the
   Roman church, and it is well for her that she never had a chance to
   retaliate. She is emphatically a church of martyrs.

   (d) The Reformed church in Holland, after passing through terrible
   trials and persecutions under Spanish rule, showed its intolerance
   toward the Protestant Arminians who were defeated by the Synod of Dort
   (1619). Their pastors and teachers were deposed and banished. The
   Arminian controversy was, however, mixed up with politics; the
   Calvinists were the national and popular party under the military lead
   of Prince Maurice; while the political leaders of Arminianism, John Van
   Olden Barneveldt and Hugo Grotius, were suspected of disloyalty for
   concluding a truce with Spain (1609), and condemned, the one to death,
   the other to perpetual banishment. With a change of administration the
   Arminians were allowed to return (1625), and disseminated, with a
   liberal theology, principles of religious toleration.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [42] Froude says (Luther, p. 38): "The appearance of Luther before the
   Diet on this occasion, is one of the finest, perhaps it is the very
   finest, scene in human history."

   [43] Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Lactantius made some of the
   strongest pleas in favor of religious liberty. See vol. II. 35 and 825.

   [44] Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem,"a maxim held by the Catholic church
   even in the darkest days of persecution. When the first blood of
   heretics was shed by order of the Emperor Maximus who punished some
   Priscillianists in Spain by the sword in 388, St. Ambrose of Milan and
   St. Martin of Tours loudly protested against the cruelty and broke off
   communion with the bishops who had approved it.

   [45] Ex. 22:20; Num. 25:2-8; Deut. 13:1-14; 17:2-5; Lev. 24:14-16;
   comp. 1 Kings 21:10, 13. The law was executed against Stephen, the
   protomartyr, Acts 6:11, 13; 7:58.

   [46] He begins his anti-Manichaean work, Adv. Epistolam Manichaei quam
   vocant fundamenti, written in 397, with these noble Christian
   sentiments: "My prayer to the one true, almighty God, of whom and by
   whom and in whom are all things, has been and is now, that in opposing
   and refuting the heresy of you Manichaeans, as you may after all be
   heretics more from thoughtlessness than from malice, He would give me a
   calm and composed mind, aiming at your recovery rather than your
   discomfiture. For, while the Lord by his servants overthrows the
   kingdoms of error, his will concerning erring men, as far as they are
   men, is that they should be restored rather than destroyed. And in
   every case where, previous to the final judgment, God inflicts
   punishment ... we must believe that the designed effect is the recovery
   of men, and not their ruin; while there is a preparation for the final
   doom in the case of those who reject the means of recovery," And in ch.
   3 he says to the Manichaeeans, remembering his own former connection
   with them: I can on no account treat you angrily; for I must bear with
   you now as formerly I had to bear with myself, and I must be as patient
   with you as my associates were with me, when I went madly and blindly
   astray in your beliefs."

   [47] De Correct. Donatist, c. 6, § 24: "The Lord himself (Luke 14:23)
   bids the guests in the first instance to be invited to His great
   supper, and afterwards to be compelled." He understands the highways
   and hedges of the parable to mean heresies and schisms, and the Supper
   of the Lord to mean the unity of the body of Christ in the sacrament of
   the altar and the bond of peace. He says (ch. 7, § 25) that when the
   imperial laws against heresy first were sent to Africa he with certain
   brethren opposed their execution, but afterwards justified them as a
   measure of catholic self-defense against the fanatical violence of the
   Donatists. The result was, that both Catholics and Donatists were
   overwhelmed in ruin by the Vandal conquerors, who were Arian heretics.

   [48] "Credere non potest homo nisi volens." See his Tract. XXVI. in
   Joan. c. 2, where he says: "A man can come to church unwillingly, can
   approach the altar unwillingly, partake of the sacrament unwillingly;
   but he can not believe unless he is willing. If we believed with the
   body, men might be made to believe against their will. But believing is
   not a thing done with the body." I am pleased to find an approving
   reference to this sentence in the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. of Nov.
   1, 1885.

   [49] In a letter to Proconsul Donatus (Ep. C.) he adjured him by Jesus
   Christ, not to repay the Donatists in kind, and says: "Corrigi eos
   cupimus, non necari."

   [50] Summa Theol. Secunda Secundae, Quaest. x., Art. 11.

   [51] Ibid. Quaest. xi., Art. 3, where he says of heretics: "Meruerunt
   non solum ab ecclesia per excommunicationem seperari, sed etiam per
   mortem a mundo excludi ... Si falsarii pecuniae vel alii malefactores
   statim per saeculares principes juste morti traduntur, multo magis
   haeretici statim ex quo de haerisi convincuntur, possunt non solum
   excommunicari, sed et juste occidi."

   [52] Gibbon asserts that "the number of Protestants who were executed
   [by the Spaniards] in a single province and a single reign, far
   exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries,
   and in the Roman empire?" Decline and Fall, Ch. xvi., towards the
   close. Grotius, to whom he refers, states that the number of Dutch
   martyrs exceeded 100,000; Sarpi reduces the number to 50,000. Alva
   himself boasted that during his six years' rule as the agent of Philip
   II., he had caused 18,000 persons to be executed, but this does not
   include the much larger number of those who perished by siege, battle,
   and in prisons. At the sack of Haarlem, 300 citizens, tied two and two
   and back to back, were thrown into the lake, and at Zutphen 500 more,
   in the same manner, were drowned in the Yssel. See Motley', Rise of the
   Dutch Republic, vol. II. 504: "The barbarities committed amid the sack
   and ruin of those blazing and starving cities are almost beyond belief;
   unborn infants were torn from the living bodies of their mothers; women
   and children were violated by the thousands; and whole populations
   burned and hacked to pieces by soldiers in every mode which cruelty, in
   its wanton ingenuity, could devise."

   [53] See De Thou, Hist. lib. LXIII.; Gieseler, IV. 304 (Am. ed,);
   Wachler, Die Pariser Bluthochzeit., 2d ed., Leipzig, 1828; Henry White,
   Massacre of St. Bartholomew, N. Y., 1868; Henry M. Baird, History of
   the Rise of the Huguenots, New York, 1879; Henri Bordier, La
   Saint-Barthélemy et la Critique moderne, Paris, 1879; H. Baumgarten,
   Vor der Bartholomaeusnacht, Strassburg, 1882. The number of victims of
   that massacre in Paris and throughout France, is variously stated from
   10,000 to 100,000; De Thou and Ranke give 20,000 as the most moderate
   estimate (2,000 in Paris). Roman Catholic writers defend the pope on
   the ground of ignorance; but he had abundant time to secure full
   information from his nuncio and others before the medals were struck.
   It is said that Philip II. of Spain, for the first time in his life,
   laughed aloud when he heard of the massacre.

   [54] See the French histories of Martin, Benoit, Michelet, De Félice,
   Ranke, Soldan, Von Polenz, and other works quoted by H. M. Baird in
   Schaff-Herzog II., 1037. The number of French refugees is estimated as
   high as 800,000; Baird reduces it to 400,000. Martin thinks, that
   taking all in all, "France lost the activity of more than a million of
   men, and of the men that produced most." Many of the descendants of the
   refugees whom the Elector Frederic William of Prussia so hospitably
   invited to Berlin, fought against France in the Napoleonic wars, and
   aided in the terrible retribution of 1870.

   [55] Among the errors condemned are these, § X., 78 and 79: "In the
   present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion shall
   be held as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all
   other modes of worship.""Whence it has been wisely provided by law,
   that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise
   of their own worship." The condemnation of toleration implies the
   approval of intolerance. See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, II., 232.
   Janssen, while he condemns the Protestant persecutions of Catholics,
   approves the Catholic persecutions of Protestants in the time of the
   Reformation. He says: "Für die katholische Geistlichkeit, die
   katholischen Fürsten und Magistrate und das katholsche Volk war es ein
   Kampf der Sebsterhaltung, wenn sie Alles aufboten, um dem
   Protestantismus den Eingang in ihre Gebiete zu wehren und ihn, wenn er
   eingedrungen war, daraus wieder zu entfernen." -Geschichte des
   deutschen Volkes, III., 193.

   [56] After glorifying the Middle Ages and the hierarchical rule of the
   church over the state, Leo XIII. in that Encyclical proceeds to say:
   "No doubt the same excellent state of things would have continued, if
   the agreement of the two powers had continued, and greater things might
   rightfully have been expected, if men had obeyed the authority, the
   teaching office, and the counsels of the church with more fidelity and
   perseverance. For that is to be regarded as a perpetual law which Ivo,
   of Chartres, wrote to Pope Paschal II.: 'When kingship and priesthood
   are agreed, the world is well ruled, the church flourishes and bears
   fruit. But when they are at variance, not only do little things not
   grow, but even great things fall into miserable ruin and decay.' " Then
   the pope rejects among the evil consequences of the "revolution" of the
   sixteenth century (meaning, of course, the Reformation) the erroneous
   opinion that "no religion should be publicly professed [by the state];
   nor ought one to be preferred to the rest; nor ought there to be any
   inquiry which of many is alone true; nor ought one to be specially
   favored, but to each alike equal rights ought to be assigned, provided
   only, that the social order incurs no injury from them." This is
   probably aimed at Italy and France, but implies also a condemnation of
   the separation of church and state as it exists in the United States.
   Further on, the pope approvingly refers to the Encyclical Mirari Vos of
   Gregory XVI. (Aug. 15, 1832), which condemns the separation of church
   and state, and to the Syllabus of Pius IX., who "noted many false
   opinions and ordered them to be collected together in order that in so
   great a conflux of errors Catholics might have something which they
   might follow without stumbling."

   [57] Thus, in 1852, the Madiai family were imprisoned in Florence for
   holding prayer meetings and reading the Bible, and in 1853, Matamoras,
   Carrasco and their friends were imprisoned and condemned to the galleys
   at Madrid for the same offense, and were only released after a powerful
   protest of an international deputation of the Evangelical Alliance. No
   public worship except the Roman Catholic was tolerated in the city of
   Rome before 1870.

   [58] See his tract, written in 1523, Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit
   man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei? In Walch X. 426-479, especially the
   second part, col. 451 sqq. "Der Seelen kann und soll niemand gebieten,
   er wisse denn ihr den Weg zu weisen gen Himmel. Das kann aber kein
   Mensch thun, sondern Gott allein. Darum in den Sachen, die der Seelen
   Seligkeit betreffen, soll nichts denn Gottes Wort gelehret und
   angenommenwerden" (453). Es ist ein frei Werk um den Glauben, dazu man
   niemand kann zwingen ... Zum Glauben kann und soll man niemand zwingen"
   (455 sq.). He justly confines the duty of obedience taught in Rom.
   13:1, and 1 Pet. 2:13, to secular matters, and qualifies them by Matt.
   22:21.

   [59] Von der Wiedertaufe, an zwei Pfarrherrn, written in Dec., 1527 or
   Jan., 1528, and addressed to two pastors in a Roman Catholic country
   (probably under the rule of Duke George of Saxony). See Walch XVII.,
   2644, and the Erl. Frankf. ed. xxvi., or of the
   Reformations-historische Schriften III. (2d ed. 1885), p. 283, from
   which I quote the whole passage: "Doch ist's nicht recht, und ist mir
   wahrlich leid, dass man solche elende Lente so jämmerlich ermordet,
   verbrennet und greulich umbringt; man sollte, ja einen jeglichen lassen
   gläuben, was er wollt. Gläubet er unrecht, so hat er gnug Strafen an
   dem ewigen Feur in der Höllen. Warumb will man sie denn auch noch
   zeitlich martern, so ferne sie allein im Glauben irren, und nicht auch
   daneben aufruhrisch oder sonst der Oeberkeit widerstreben? Lieber Gott,
   wie bald ists geschehen, dass einer irre wird und dem Teufel in Strick
   fället! Mit der Schrift und Gottes Wort sollt man ihn wehren und
   widerstehen; mit Feuer wird man wenig ausrichten."

   [60] Briefe, de Wette III., 347 sq.: "Quod quaeris, an liceat
   magistratui accidere pseudoprophetas? Ego ad judiciam sanguinis tardus
   sum, etiam ubi meritum abundat ... Nullo modo possum admittere, falsos
   doctores occidi; satis est eos relegari." He gives as a reason that the
   law of the death penalty among the Jews and Papists was made a pretext
   for killing true prophets and saints.

   [61] His coarse attack on Henry VIII., "by God's disfavor (or disgrace,
   Ungnade) king of England," is well known. In his book, Von weltlicher
   Obrigkeit, which is dedicated to his own prince, Duke John, he ventures
   the opinion that wise and pious rulers have from the beginning of the
   world been rare birds, and that princes are usually the greatest fools
   or worst boobies on earth (sie sind gemeiniglich die grössten Narren
   oder die ärgsten Buben auf Erden). Walch X., 460 and 464."Es sind gar
   wenig Fürsten, die man nicht für Narren und Buben hält. Das macht, sie
   bewiesen sich auch also, und der gemeine Mann wird verständig."Ibid.,
   464.

   [62] In a letter to Albrecht of Brandenburg, a. 1532, after he heard of
   Zwingli's death. De Wette IV., 349-355. In the same letter he speaks of
   Zwingli's salvation only problematically, as having possibly occurred
   in the last moment! He lays there the greatest stress on the real
   presence as a fundamental article of faith.

   [63] See his tract entitled Dass Jesus Christus ein geborner Jude sei,
   in the Erl. Frkf. ed. Bd. XIX., p. 45-75. He says that if I were a Jew
   and suffered what the Jews had to suffer from popes, bishops and monks,
   "so wäre ich eher eine Sau worden denn ein Christ. Denn sie haben mit
   den Juden gehandelt, als wären es Hunde, und nicht Menschen" (p. 47).

   [64] Von den Jüden und ihren Lügen, Wittenb., 1543, and Vom Schem
   Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi, Wittenb., 1543. In the Erl. Frkf.
   ed. Bd. XXXII., 99-274, and 275-358.

   [65] "Ein Jüde oder jüdisch Herz ist so stock-stein-eisen-teufel-hart,
   dass es mit keiner Weise zu bewegen ist ... Summa, es sind junge
   Teufel, zur Höllen verdammt" (l.c. p. 276). He had no hope of the
   future conversion of the Jews, which some justly derived from Rom. 11,
   but "St. Paulus meinet gar viel ein Anderes" (277).

   [66] "Vermahnung wider die Jüden," 1546, Erl. ed. LXV., 186-188. He
   concludes: Wollen sich die Jüden zu uns bekehren und von ihrer
   Lästerung und was sie uns sonst gethan haben, aufhören, so wollen wir
   es ihnen gerne vergeben: wo aber nicht, so sollen wir sie auch bei uns
   nicht dulden noch leiden."This reminds one of the way in which Prince
   Bismarck in the year 1886 proposed to deal with the Poles in Posen as
   enemies of Prussia and Germany: to buy them out, and expel them from
   the land of their birth. In several other respects, both favorable and
   unfavorable, that great statesman may be called the political Luther of
   the nineteenth century.

   [67] Corpus Reform. Opera Mel. VIII., 362. Comp. H. Tollin, Ph.
   Melanchthon und M. Servet. Eine Quellen-Studie. Berlin, 1876 (198
   pages). Tollin wrote several monographs on Servetus in his various
   relations.

   [68] Ibid., IX., 133: "Dedit vero et Genevensis Reipubl. Magistratus
   ante annos quatuor punitae insanabilis blasphemiae adversus Filium Dei,
   sublato Serveto Arragone, pium et memorabile ad omnem posteritatem
   exemplum."

   [69] Luther knew only the Servetus of 1531, and once refers to him in
   his Table-Talk, as a fanatic who mastered theology by false philosophy.
   See Tollin, Luther und Servet, Berlin, 1875 (61 pages).

   [70] See Tollin, Butzer's Confutatio der Libri VII. De Trinitatis
   Erroribus, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1875; and Michael Servet
   und Martin Butzer, Berlin, 1880; Baum, Capito und Butzer (1860), pp.
   489 sq., 478, and 495 sq.; also Janssen, Gesch. des deutschen Volkes,
   vol. III., 194.

   [71] "Denn wiewohl unsere Meinung nicht ist, jemand zu verbinden, was
   er glauben und halten soll, so wollen wir doch zur Verhütung
   schädlicher Aufruhre und anderer Unrichtigkeiten keine Sekten noch
   Trennung in unseren Landen dulden." Köstlin II., 29. What a difference
   between this restriction and the declaration of Frederick the Great,
   that in his dominions every body may be saved after his own fashion
   (nach seiner eigenen Façon).

   [72] Fr. Koch, De Vita Caspar. Peuceri Marburg, 1856. Richard, Der
   churfürstl. sächs. Kanzler Dr. Nic. Krell. Dresden, 1859, 2 vols.
   Henke, Kaspar Peucer und Nik. Krell, Marburg, 1865. Calinich, Kampf und
   Untergang des Melathonismus in Kursachsen, Leipzig, 1866; Zwei
   sächsische Kanzler, Chemnitz, 1868.

   [73] The following lines were familiar during the seventeenth century:
   "Gottes Wort und Lutheri Schrift Sind des Papst's und Calvini Gift."

   [74] Hermann Dalton (of St. Petersburg), in his Johannes a Laasco
   (Gotha, 1881), pp. 427-438, gives a graphic description of what he
   calls Laski's "martyrdom in Denmark and North Germany." Calvin raised
   his indignant protest against this cruel treatment of his brethren, but
   in the same year Servetus was made to suffer death for heresy and
   blasphemy under Calvin's eye!

   [75] Bullinger, Reformationsgeschichte, I., 382. Comp. his Von der
   Wiedertäufer Ursprung, etc., 1560. Hagenbach, Kirchengesch., III. 350
   sqq. Emil Egli, Die Züricher Wiedertäufer zur Reformatiosszeit, Zürich,
   1884. Nitsche, Gesch. der Wiedertäufer in der Schweiz, Einsiedeln,
   1885.

   [76] The statue erected to his memory at Zürich, August 25th, 1885,
   represents him as holding the Bible in his right hand and the sword
   with his left. Dr. Alex. Schweizer protested (as he informed me)
   against the sword, and took no part in the festivities of the
   dedication of the monument.

   [77] Servetus probably imagined himself to represent the Apostle when
   he called Calvin "Simon Magus." He did identify himself with the
   archangel Michael fighting against the dragon, i.e. the Pope of Rome,
   Apoc. 12:7.

   [78] Together with the extensive literature.

   [79] Servetus appeared on a Sunday morning, August 13th, 1553, in one
   of the churches at Geneva and was recognized by one of the worshippers,
   who at once informed Calvin of the fact, whereupon he was thrown into
   prison. "Nec sane dissimulo," says Calvin (Opera, vol. VIII., col. 461,
   ed. Baum, Reuss, etc.), "mea opera consilioque jure in carcerem fuisse
   conjectum." Beza, in his Vita Calv., reports the fact as providential
   that Servetus, "a quodam agnitus, Calvino Magistratum admonente," was
   arrested. Servetus had previously applied for a safe-conduct from
   Vienne to Geneva, but Calvin refused it, and wrote to Farel, February
   13th, 1546: "Si venerit, modo valeat mea auctoritas, vivum exire
   numquam patiar." During the process, he expressed the hope, in a letter
   to Farel (August 2nd, 1553), that Servetus might be condemned to death,
   but that the sentence be executed in a milder form (Opera xiv., col.
   590): "Spero capitale saltem fore judicium, poenae vero atrocitatem
   [ignem] remitti cupio." In the same letter he gives a sketch of the
   system of Servetus as teaching a pantheistic diffusion of the deity in
   wood, stone, and even in devils.

   [80] "Hoc crimen," he says in the 27th of his letters to Calvin (Opera
   VIII., 708), "est morte simpliciter dignum." Calvin refers to this
   admission of Servetus (VIII., 462) and charges him with inconsistency.

   [81] De Trinitatis Erroribus Libri Sept. Per michaelem Serveto, aliàs
   Reves ab Aragonia Hispanum. Anno M. D. XXXI. No place of publication is
   given in the copy before me, but it was printed at Hagenau in the
   Alsace, as appears from the trial at Geneva. The book excited the
   greatest indignation in Oecolampadius and Bucer. Luther called it an
   awfully wicked book (ein gräulich bös Buch). Bucer thought the author
   ought to be torn to pieces.

   [82] Christianismi Restitutio ... MDLIII., secretly printed at Vienne
   in France, with his initials on the last page, M. S. V. (i e.:
   Villanovanus).

   [83] Such blasphemy of the Trinity appeared to be blasphemy of the
   Deity itself. Hence Beza calls Servetus "ille sacrae Triadis, id est
   omnis verae Deitatis hostis, adeoque monstrum ex omnibus quantumvis
   rancidis et portentosis haeresibus conflatum."Calv. Vita, ad a. 1553.
   He charges his book with being "full of blasphemies." Servetus called
   Jesus "the Son of the eternal God," but obstinately refused to call him
   "the eternal Son of God," in other words, to admit his eternal
   divinity.

   [84] "The year 1553," says Beza in Calvini Vita, ad a. 1553, "by the
   impatience and malice of the factious [the Libertines] was a year so
   full of trouble that not only the church, but the republic of Geneva,
   came within a hair's breadth of ruin ... All power had fallen into
   their hands, that nothing seemed to hinder them from attaining the ends
   for which they had so long been striving." Then he mentions the trial
   of Servetus as the other danger, which was aggravated by the first.

   [85] H. Tollin, a Reformed clergyman of Magdeburg, the most
   enthusiastic and voluminous advocate of Servetus and his system, admits
   this, saying (Charakterbild M. Servet's, Berlin, 1876, p. 6): "Nicht
   Calvin ist schuldig der That, sondern der Protestantismus seiner Zeit."
   Another apologist, Dardier (in Lichtenberger's "Encyclopédie " XI.
   581), says the same: C'est la Réforme tout entière qui est
   coupable."The famous Christian philosopher, Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
   went further. In one of his last utterances, in his Table-Talk, sub
   Jan. 3, 1834 (to which a friend directed my attention), he expressed
   his views as follows: " I have known books written on tolerance, the
   proper title of which would be--intolerant or intolerable books on
   tolerance. Should not a man who writes a book expressly to inculcate
   tolerance learn to treat with respect, or at least with indulgence,
   articles of faith which tens of thousands ten times told of his
   fellow-subjects or his fellow-creatures believe with all their souls,
   and upon the truth of which they rest their tranquillity in this world,
   and their hopes of salvation in the next,--those articles being at
   least maintainable against his arguments, and most certainly innocent
   in themselves?--Is it fitting to run Jesus Christ in a silly parallel
   with Socrates--the Being whom thousand millions of intellectual
   creatures, of whom I am an humble unit, take to be their Redeemer, with
   an Athenian philosopher, of whom we should know nothing except through
   his glorification in Plato and Xenophon?--And then to hitch Latimer and
   Servetus together! To be sure, there was a stake and a fire in each
   case, but where the rest of the resemblance is I cannot see. What
   ground is there for throwing the odium of Servetus's death upon Calvin
   alone?--Why, the mild Melanchthon wrote to Calvin, expressly to testify
   his concurrence in the act, and no doubt he spoke the sense of the
   German Reformers; the Swiss churches advised the punishment in formal
   letters, and I rather think there are letters from the English divines,
   approving Calvin's conduct!--Before a man deals out the slang of the
   day about the great leaders of the Reformation, he should learn to
   throw himself back to the age of the Reformation, when the two great
   parties in the church were eagerly on the watch to fasten a charge of
   heresy on the other. Besides, if ever a poor fanatic thrust himself
   into the fire, it was Michael Servetus. He was a rabid enthusiast, and
   did everything he could in the way of insult and ribaldry to provoke
   the feeling of the Christian church. He called the Trinitytriceps
   monstrum et Cerberum quemdam tri-partitum, and so on!'

   [86] Defensio orthodoxae fidei de sacra trinitate contra prodigiosos
   errores Michaelis Serveti Hispani ubi ostenditur haereticos jure gladii
   örcendos esse. In Calvin's Opera, ed. Reuss, etc., vol. VIII. 483-644.
   Bullinger urged him to the task in a letter of December 12th, 1553
   (Opera, XIV. 698): "Vide, me Calvine, ut diligenter et, pie omnibus
   piis describas Servetum cum suo exitu, ut omnes abhorreant a bestia."

   [87] De haeriticis a civili magistratu puniendis, adversus Martini
   Bellii (an unknown person) farraginem et novorum academicorum sectam.
   Geneva (Oliva Rob. Stephani), 1554; second ed. 1592; French translation
   by Nic. Colladon, 1560. See Heppe's Beza, p. 38 sq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 12. Religious Intolerance and Liberty in England and America.

   The history of the Reformation in England and Scotland is even more
   disfigured by acts of intolerance and persecution than that of the
   Continent, but resulted at last in greater gain for religious freedom.
   The modern ideas of well regulated, constitutional liberty, both civil
   and religious, have grown chiefly on English soil.

   At first it was a battle between persecution and mere toleration, but
   toleration once legally secured prepared the way for full religious
   liberty.

   All parties when persecuted, advocated liberty of conscience, and all
   parties when in power, exercised intolerance, but in different degrees.
   The Episcopalians before 1689 were less intolerant than the Romanists
   under Queen Mary; the Presbyterians before 1660 were less intolerant
   than the Episcopalians; the Independents less intolerant (in England)
   than the Presbyterians (but more intolerant in New England); the
   Baptists, Quakers, Socinians and Unitarians consistently taught freedom
   of conscience, and were never tempted to exercise intolerance. Finally
   all became tolerant in consequence of a legal settlement in 1689, but
   even that was restricted by disabling clauses. The Romanists used fire
   and sword; the Episcopalians fines, prisons, pillories, nose-slittings,
   ear-croppings, and cheek-burnings; the Presbyterians tried depositions
   and disabilities; the Independents in New England exiled Roger
   Williams, the Baptist (1636), and hanged four Quakers (two men and two
   women, 1659, 1660 and 1661) in Boston, and nineteen witches in Salem
   (1692). But all these measures of repression proved as many failures
   and made persecution more hateful and at last impossible.

   1. The first act of the English Reformation, under Henry VIII., was
   simply the substitution of a domestic for a foreign popery and tyranny;
   and it was a change for the worse. No one was safe who dared to dissent
   from the creed of the despotic monarch who proclaimed himself "the
   supreme head of the Church of England." At his death (1547), the six
   bloody articles were still in force; but they contained some of the
   chief dogmas of Romanism which he held in spite of his revolt against
   the pope.

   2. Under the brief reign of Edward VI. (1547-1553), the Reformation
   made decided progress, but Anabaptists were not tolerated; two of them,
   who held some curious views on the incarnation, were burnt as obstinate
   heretics, Joan Bocher, commonly called Joan of Kent, May 2, 1550, and
   George Van Pare, a Dutchman April 6, 1551. The. young king refused at
   first to sign the death-warrant of the woman, correctly thinking that
   the sentence was "a piece of cruelty too like that which they had
   condemned in papists;" at last he yielded to Cranmer's authority, who
   argued with him from the law of Moses against blasphemy, but he put his
   hand to the warrant with tears in his eyes and charged the archbishop
   with the responsibility for the act if it should be wrong.

   3. The reign of the bloody Queen Mary (1553-1558) was a fearful
   retaliation, but sealed the doom of popery by the blood of Protestant
   martyrs, including the Reformers, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who
   were burnt in the market place at Oxford.

   4. Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603), by virtue of her office, as "Defender
   of the Faith, and supreme governor of the Church" in her dominions,
   permanently established the Reformed religion, but to the exclusion of
   all dissent. Her penal code may have been a political necessity, as a
   protection against domestic treason and foreign invasion, but it aimed
   systematically at the annihilation of both Popery and Puritanism. It
   acted most severely upon Roman Catholic priests, who could only save
   their lives by concealment or exile. Conformity to the Thirty-nine
   Articles and the Book of Common Prayer was rigidly enforced; attendance
   upon the Episcopal service was commanded, while the mass and every
   other kind of public worship were forbidden under severe penalties. The
   rack in the tower was freely employed against noblemen suspected of
   disloyalty to the queen-pope. The statute de haereticis comburendis
   from the reign of Henry IV. (1401) remained in force, and two
   Anabaptists were burnt alive under Elizabeth, and two Arians under her
   successor. The statute was not formally abolished till 1677. Ireland
   was treated ecclesiastically as well as politically as a conquered
   province, and England is still suffering from that cruel polity, which
   nursed a hereditary hatred of the Catholic people against their
   Protestant rulers, and made the removal of the Irish grievances the
   most difficult problem of English statesmanship.

   Popery disappeared for a while from British soil, and the Spanish
   Armada was utterly defeated. But Puritanism, which fought in the front
   rank against the big pope at Rome, could not be defeated by the little
   popes at home. It broke out at last in open revolt against the tyranny
   of the Stuarts, and the cruelties of the Star Chamber and
   High-Commission Court, which were not far behind the Spanish
   Inquisition, and punished freedom of speech and of the press as a crime
   against society.

   5. Puritanism ruled England for about twenty years (1640 to 1660),
   which form the most intensely earnest and excited period in her
   history. It saved the rights of the people against the oppression of
   their rulers, but it punished intolerance with intolerance, and fell
   into the opposite error of enforcing Puritan, in the place of
   Episcopal, uniformity, though with far less severity. The Long
   Parliament abolished the Episcopal hierarchy and liturgy (Sept. 10,
   1642), expelled about two thousand royalist clergymen from their
   benefices, and executed on the block Archbishop Laud (1644) and King
   Charles I. (1649), as traitors; thus crowning them with the glory of
   martyrdom and preparing the way for the Restoration. Episcopalians now
   became champions of toleration, and Jeremy Taylor, the Shakespeare of
   the English pulpit, raised his eloquent voice for the Liberty of
   Prophesying (1647), which, however, he afterward recalled in part when
   he was made a bishop by Charles II. (1661). [88]

   The Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643-1652), which numbered one
   hundred and twenty-one divines and several lay-deputies and is one of
   the most important ecclesiastical meetings ever held, was intrusted by
   Parliament with the impossible task of framing a uniform creed,
   discipline and ritual for three kingdoms. The extraordinary religious
   commotion of the times gave rise to all sorts of religious opinions
   from the most rigid orthodoxy to deism and atheism, and called forth a
   lively pamphlet war on the subject of toleration, which became an apple
   of discord in the Assembly. Thomas Edwards, in his Gangraena (1645),
   enumerated, with uncritical exaggeration, no less than sixteen sects
   and one hundred and seventy-six miscellaneous "errors, heresies and
   blasphemies," exclusive of popery and deism. [89]

   There were three theories on toleration, which may be best stated in
   the words of George Gillespie, one of the Scottish commissioners of the
   Assembly. [90]

   (a) The theory of the "Papists who hold it to be not only no sin, but
   good service to God to extirpate by fire and sword all that are
   adversaries to, or opposers of, the Church and Catholic religion."
   Under this theory John Hus and Jerome of Prague were burnt at the
   Council of Constance. Gillespie calls it., in the Preface, "the black
   devil of idolatry and tyranny."

   (b) "The second opinion doth fall short as far as the former doth
   exceed: that is, that the magistrate ought not to inflict any
   punishment, nor put forth any coërcive power upon heretics and
   sectaries, but on the contrary grant them liberty and toleration." This
   theory is called "the white devil of heresy and schism," and ascribed
   to the Donatists (?), Socinians, Arminians and Independents. But the
   chief advocate was Roger Williams, the Baptist, who became the founder
   of Rhode Island. [91] He went to the root of the question, and demanded
   complete separation of politics from religion. Long before him, the
   Puritan Bishop Hooper, and Robert Browne, the renegade founder of
   Congregationalism had taught the primitive Christian principle that the
   magistrates had no authority over the church and the conscience, but
   only over civil matters. Luther expressed the same view in 1523. [92]

   (c) "The third opinion is that the magistrate may and ought to exercise
   his coërcive power in suppressing and punishing heretics and sectaries
   less or more, according as the nature and degree of the error, schism,
   obstinacy, and danger of seducing others may require." For this theory
   Gillespie quotes Moses, St. Augustin, Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Voëtius,
   John Gerhard, and other Calvinistic and Lutheran divines. It was held
   by the Presbyterians in England and Scotland, including the Scottish
   commissioners in the Assembly, and vigorously advocated by Dr. Samuel
   Rutherford, Professor of Divinity in St. Andrews, [93] and most
   zealously by Thomas Edwards, a Presbyterian minister in London. [94] It
   had a strong basis in the national endorsement of the Solemn League and
   Covenant, and triumphed in the Westminster Assembly. It may therefore
   be called the Presbyterian theory of the seventeenth century. But it
   was never put into practice by Presbyterians, at least not to the
   extent of physical violence, against heretics and schismatics either in
   England or Scotland. [95]

   The Westminster Confession of Faith, in its original shape, declares,
   on the one hand, the great principle of religious liberty, that "God
   alone is Lord of the conscience," but also, on the other hand, that
   dangerous heretics "may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded
   against by the censures of the church, and by the power of the civil
   magistrate." [96] And it assigns to the civil magistrate the power and
   duty to preserve "unity and peace in the church," to suppress "all
   blasphemies and heresies," to prevent or reform "all corruptions and
   abuses in worship and discipline," and for this purpose "to call synods
   and be present at them." [97]

   6. The five Independent members of the Assembly under the lead of Dr.
   Goodwin protested against the power given to the civil magistrate and
   to synods. [98] The obnoxious clauses of the Confession were therefore
   omitted or changed in the Congregational recension called "the Savoy
   Declaration" (1658). [99]

   But the toleration of the Independents, especially after they obtained
   the ascendancy under Cromwell's protectorate differed very little from
   that of the Presbyterians. They were spoiled by success. [100] They
   excluded from their program Popery, Prelacy, and Socinianism. Dr. Owen,
   their most distinguished divine, who preached by command a sermon
   before Parliament on the day after the execution of Charles I.,
   entitled "Righteous Zeal encouraged by Divine Protection" (Jer. 15:19,
   20), and accepted the appointment as Dean of Christ Church and
   Vice-Chancellor of the University at Oxford, laid down no less than
   sixteen fundamentals as conditions of toleration. [101] He and Dr.
   Goodwin served on the Commission of the forty-three Triers which, under
   Cromwell's protectorate, took the place of the Westminster Assembly.
   Cromwell himself, though the most liberal among the English rulers and
   the boldest protector of Protestantism abroad, limited toleration to
   Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists and Quakers, all of whom
   recognized the sacred Scriptures and the fundamental articles of
   Christianity; but he had no toleration for Romanists and Episcopal
   Royalists, who endangered his reign and who were suspected of
   tolerating none but themselves. His great foreign secretary, John
   Milton, the most eloquent advocate of liberty in the English language,
   defended the execution of the king, and was intolerant to popery and
   prelacy.

   Had Cromwell reigned longer, the Triers and the Savoy Conference which
   he reluctantly appointed, would probably have repeated the vain attempt
   of the Westminster Assembly to impose a uniform creed upon the nation,
   only with a little more liberal "accommodation" for orthodox dissenters
   except "papists" and "prelatists"). Their brethren in New England where
   they had full sway, established a Congregational theocracy which had no
   room even for Baptists and Quakers.

   7. Cromwell's reign was a brief experiment. His son was incompetent to
   continue it. Puritanism had not won the heart of England, but prepared
   its own tomb by its excesses and blunders. Royalty and Episcopacy,
   which struck their roots deep in the past, were restored with the
   powerful aid of the Presbyterians. And now followed a reaction in favor
   of political and ecclesiastical despotism, and public and private
   immorality, which for a time ruined all the good which Puritanism had
   done.

   Charles II., who "never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one,"
   broke his solemn pledges and took the lead in intolerance and
   licentiousness. The Act of Uniformity was re-enacted May 19, 1662, and
   went into operation on St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1662, made
   hideous by the St. Bartholomew Massacre, nearly a hundred years before.
   "And now came in," says Baxter, one of the most moderate as well as
   most learned and pious of the Nonconformists, "the great inundation of
   calamities, which in many streams overwhelmed thousands of godly
   Christians, together with their pastors." All Puritan ministers were
   expelled from their livings and exposed to starvation, their assemblies
   forbidden, and absolute obedience to the king and conformity to
   episcopacy were enforced, even in Scotland. The faithful Presbyterians
   in that country (the Covenanters) were subjected by the royal
   dragonnades to all manner of indignities and atrocities. "They were
   hunted"--says an English historian [102] -- like criminals over the
   mountains; their ears were torn from their roots; they were branded
   with hot irons; their fingers were wrenched asunder by the thumbkins;
   the bones of their legs were shattered in the boots; women were
   scourged publicly through the streets; multitudes were transported to
   the Barbadoes; an infuriated soldiery was let loose upon them, and
   encouraged to exercise all their ingenuity in torturing them."

   The period of the Restoration is, perhaps, the most immoral and
   disgraceful in English history. But it led at last to the final
   overthrow of the treacherous and semi-popish dynasty of the Stuarts,
   and inaugurated a new era in the history of religious liberty.
   Puritanism was not dead, but produced some of its best and most lasting
   works--Milton's Paradise Lost, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress--in this
   period of its deepest humiliation and suffering.

   8. The act of Toleration under the reign of William and Mary, 1689,
   made an end to violent persecutions in England. And yet it is far from
   what we now understand by religious liberty. Toleration is negative,
   liberty positive; toleration is a favor, liberty a right; toleration
   may be withdrawn by the power which grants it, liberty is as
   inalienable as conscience itself; toleration is extended to what cannot
   be helped and what may be in itself objectionable, liberty is a
   priceless gift of the Creator.

   The Toleration of 1689 was an accommodation to a limited number of
   Dissenters--Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists and Quakers, who were
   allowed liberty of separate organization and public worship on
   condition of subscribing thirty-six out of the Thirty-Nine Articles of
   the Church of England. Roman Catholics and Unitarians were excluded,
   and did not acquire toleration in England till the nineteenth century,
   the former by the Act of Emancipation passed April 13, 1829. Even now
   the Dissenters in England labor under minor disabilities and social
   disadvantages, which will continue as long as the government patronizes
   an established church. They have to support the establishment, in
   addition to their own denomination. Practically, however, there is more
   religious liberty in England than anywhere on the Continent, and as
   much as in the United States.

   9. The last and most important step in the progress of religious
   liberty was taken by the United States of America in the provision of
   the Federal Constitution of 1787, which excludes all religious tests
   from the qualifications to any office or public trust. The first
   amendment to the Constitution (1789) enacts that "Congress shall make
   no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
   exercise thereof." [103]

   Thus the United States government is by its own free act prevented from
   ever establishing a state-church, and on the other hand it is bound to
   protect freedom of religion, not only as a matter of opinion, but also
   in its public exercise, as one of the inalienable rights of an American
   citizen, like the freedom of speech and of the press. History had
   taught the framers of the Constitution that persecution is useless as
   well as hateful, and that it has its root in the unholy alliance of
   religion with politics. Providence had made America a hospitable home
   for all fugitives from persecution,--Puritans, Presbyterians,
   Huguenots, Baptists, Quakers, Reformed, Lutherans, Roman Catholics,
   etc.--and foreordained it for the largest development of civil and
   religious freedom consistent with order and the well-being of society.
   When the colonies, after a successful struggle for independence,
   coalesced into one nation they could not grant liberty to one church or
   sect without granting it to all. They were thus naturally driven to
   this result. It was the inevitable destiny of America. And it involved
   no injustice or injury to any church or sect.

   The modern German empire forms in some measure a parallel. When it was
   formed in 1870 by the free action of the twenty or more German
   sovereignties, it had to take them in with their religion, and abstain
   from all religious and ecclesiastical legislation which might interfere
   with the religion of any separate state.

   The constitutional provision of the United States in regard to religion
   is the last outcome of the Reformation in its effect upon toleration
   and freedom, not foreseen or dreamed of by the Reformers, but
   inevitably resulting from their revolt against papal tyranny. It has
   grown on Protestant soil with the hearty support of all sects and
   parties. It cuts the chief root of papal and any other persecution, and
   makes it legally impossible. It separates church and state, and thus
   prevents the civil punishment of heresy as a crime against the state.
   It renders to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and renders to God
   the things that are God's. It marks a new epoch in the history of
   legislation and civilization. It is the American contribution to church
   history. No part of the federal constitution is so generally accepted
   and so heartily approved as that which guarantees religious liberty,
   the most sacred and most important of all liberties. It is regarded
   almost as an axiom which needs no argument.

   Religious liberty has thus far been fully justified by its effects. It
   has stimulated the fullest development of the voluntary principle. The
   various Christian churches can live in peace and harmony together, and
   are fully able to support and to govern themselves without the aid of
   the secular power. This has been proven by the experience of a century,
   and this experience is the strongest argument in favor of the
   separation of church and state. Christianity flourishes best without a
   state-church.

   The separation, however, is peaceful, not hostile, as it was in the
   Ante-Nicene age, when the pagan state persecuted the church. Nor is it
   a separation of the nation from Christianity. The government is bound
   to protect all forms of Christianity with its day of rest, its
   churches, its educational and charitable institutions. [104] Even
   irreligion and infidelity are tolerated within the limits of the law of
   self-preservation. Religious liberty may, of course, be abused like any
   other liberty. It has its necessary boundary in the liberty of others
   and the essential interests of society. The United States government
   would not tolerate, much less protect, a religion which requires human
   sacrifices, or sanctions licentious rites, or polygamy, or any other
   institution inconsistent with the laws and customs of the land, and
   subversive of the foundation of the state and the order of Christian
   civilization. Hence the recent prohibition of polygamy in the
   Territories, and the unwillingness of Congress to admit Utah into the
   family of States unless polygamy is abolished by the Mormons. The
   majority of the population decides the religion of a country, and,
   judged by this test, the American people are as Christian as any other
   on earth, only in a broader sense which recognizes all forms of
   Christianity. While Jews and infidels are not excluded from the
   enjoyment of any civil or political right on account of their religion
   or irreligion, they cannot alter the essentially Christian character of
   the sentiments, habits and institutions of the nation.

   There are three important institutions in which church and state touch
   each other even in the United States, and where a collision of
   interests may take place: education in the public schools, marriage,
   and Sunday as a day of civil and sacred rest. The Roman Catholics are
   opposed to public schools unless they can teach in them their religion
   which allows no compromise with any other; the Mormons are opposed to
   monogamy, which is the law of the land and the basis of the Christian
   family; the Jews may demand the protection of their Sabbath on
   Saturday, while infidels want no Sabbath at all except perhaps for
   amusement and dissipation. But all these questions admit of a peaceful
   settlement and equitable adjustment, without a relapse into the
   barbarous measures of persecution.

   The law of the United States is supreme in the Territories and the
   District of Columbia, but does not forbid any of the States to
   establish a particular church, or to continue a previous establishment.
   The Colonies began with the European system of state-churchism, only in
   a milder form, and varying according to the preferences of the first
   settlers. In the New England Colonies--except Rhode Island founded by
   the Baptist Roger Williams--orthodox Congregationalism was the
   established church which all citizens were required to support; in
   Virginia and the Southern States, as also in New York, the Episcopal
   Church was legally established and supported by the government. [105]
   Even those Colonies which were professedly founded on the basis of
   religious toleration, as Maryland and Pennsylvania, enacted afterwards
   disabling clauses against Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Jews and
   infidels. In Pennsylvania, the Quaker Colony of William Penn, no one
   could hold office, from 1693 to 1775, without subscribing a solemn
   declaration of belief in the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity and
   condemning the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and the
   mass as idolatrous. [106]

   The great revolution of legislation began in the Colony of Virginia in
   1776, when Episcopacy was disestablished, and all other churches freed
   from their disabilities. [107] The change was brought about by the
   combined efforts of Thomas Jefferson (the leading statesman of
   Virginia, and a firm believer in absolute religious freedom on the
   ground of philosophic neutrality), and of all dissenting denominations,
   especially the Presbyterians, Baptists and Quakers. The other Colonies
   or States gradually followed the example, and now there is no State in
   which religious freedom is not fully recognized and protected.

   The example of the United States exerts a silent, but steady and mighty
   influence upon Europe in raising the idea of mere toleration to the
   higher plane of freedom, in emancipating religion from the control of
   civil government, and in proving the advantages of the primitive
   practice of ecclesiastical self-support and self-government.

   The best legal remedy against persecution and the best guarantee of
   religious freedom is a peaceful separation of church and state; the
   best moral remedy and guarantee is a liberal culture, a comprehensive
   view of the many-sidedness of truth, a profound regard for the
   sacredness of conscientious conviction, and a broad and deep Christian
   love as described by the Apostle Paul.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [88] Coleridge regards this revocation as the only blot on Taylor's
   character. His second wife was a natural daughter of Charles I.

   [89] For the extensive literature on the subject see the list of Dr.
   Dexter, The Congregationalism of the last three hundred years as seen
   in its Literature (N. York, 1880), Appendix, pp. 49-82. The Hansard
   Knollys (Baptist) Society has published, in 1846 at London, a series of
   Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, written from
   1614-1661. I mention only those which I have myself examined in the
   rich McAlpin Collection of the Union Theol. Seminary, N. York.

   [90] Wholesome Severity reconciled with Christian Liberty, or the true
   Resolution of a present Controversie concerning Liberty of Conscience.
   Here you have the question stated, the middle way between Popish
   tyrannie and Schismatizing Liberty approved, and also confirmed from
   Scripture, and the testimonies of Divines, yea, of whole churches ...
   And in conclusion a Paraenetick to the five Apologists for choosing
   Accommodation rather than Toleration. London, 1645 (40 pages). Dexter
   (p. 56) assigns the pamphlet, which is anonymous, to Gillespie, and its
   sentiments agree with those he expressed in a sermon he preached before
   the House of Lords, August 27, 1645.

   [91] He wrote "The Bloody Tenent of Persecution," etc., 1644 (248 pp.),
   and "The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody," etc., 1652 (373 pp.). Among
   the anonymous pamphlets on the same side, we mention The Compassionate
   Samaritane, Unbinding the Conscience, and pouring oyle into the wounds
   which have been made upon the Separation, etc., 1644 (84 pp.).

   [92] Dr. Dexter asserts (p. 101) that "Robert Browne is entitled to the
   proud pre-eminence of having been the first writer clearly to state and
   defend in the English tongue the true and now accepted doctrine of the
   relation of the magistrate to the church," in his Treatise of
   Reformation, published in 1582. Comp. Dexter, p. 703 sq., and Append.
   p. 8. But this is an error. Bishop John Hooper of Gloucester, who
   suffered martyrdom under Queen Mary (1555), says in one of his earliest
   treatises: "As touching the superior powers of the earth, it is well
   known to all that have readen and marked the Scripture that it
   appertaineth nothing unto their office to make any law to govern the
   conscience of their subjects in religion."Early Writings of Bishop
   Hooper, p. 280, quoted by Dr. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, p.
   16, where may be found a still stronger passage in, Latin to the same
   effect: "Profecto Christus non ignem non carceres, non vincula, non
   violentiam, non bonorum confiscationem, non regineae majestatis
   terrorem media organa constituit quibus veritas verbi sui mundo
   promulgaretur; sed miti ac diligenti praedicatione evangelii sui mundum
   ab errore et idolatria converti praecepit."Later Writings of Bp.
   Hooper, p. 386. The same principle found expression among Mennonites
   and Anabaptists of the Reformation period, and may be traced back to
   the Apostolic and the Ante-Nicene period, when Christianity had no
   connection whatever with politics and secular government.

   [93] He wrote A Free Disputation against pretended Liberty of
   Conscience tending to resolve Doubts moved by Mr. John Goodwin, John
   Baptist, Dr. Jer. Taylor, the Belgick Arminians, Socinians, and other
   authors contending for lawless Liberty, or licentious Toleration of
   sects and Heresies. London, 1649. 410 pages. He calls the advocates of
   toleration "Libertines."

   [94] The author of Reasons against Independent Government of Particular
   Congregations: as also against the Toleration of such churches to be
   erected in this kingdom. Presented to the House of Commons. London,
   1641 (56 pp.). Antapologia; or, a Full Answer to the Apologetical
   Narration of Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr. Sympson, Mr. Burroughs, Mr.
   Bridge, Members of the Assembly of Divines. Wherein many of the
   controversies of these times are handled. London, 1646 (259 pp.). The
   First and Second Part of Gangraena; or, A Catalogue and Discovery of
   many of the Errors, Heresies, Blasphemies and pernicious Practices of
   the Sectaries of this time, vented and acted in England in these four
   last years, etc. London, 1646. The first part has 116, the second part
   178 pages. They were followed by The Third Part of Gangraena; or, A New
   and Higher Discovery of Errors, etc. London, 1646 (295 pp.), and by The
   Casting down of the last and strongest hold of Satan; or, A Treatise
   against Toleration and pretended Liberty of Conscience. London, 1647
   (218 pp.).--"The ministers of Christ within the province of London,"
   December 14, 1647, sent out a Testimony of the Truth of Jesus Christ,
   and to our Solemn League, and Covenant; as also Against the Errors,
   Heresies and Blasphemies of these times, and the Toleration of them.
   London, 1648 (38 pp.).

   [95] Dr. M'Crie, in his Annals of English Presbytery (pp. 190, 191),
   says: "It admits of being shown that even the hypothetical intolerance
   of our Presbyterian fathers differed essentially from Romish and
   Prelatic tyranny .... In point of fact it never led them to persecute,
   it never applied the rack to the flesh, or slaked its vengeance in
   blood or the maiming of the body."

   [96] Chapter XX., 2, 4. The clause "and by the power of the civil
   magistrate," is omitted in the American recension of the Westminster
   Confession.

   [97] Ch. XXIII., 3; Comp. Ch. XXXI., 1, 2. These sections were changed
   and adapted to the separation of Church and State by the united Synod
   of Philadelphia and New York which met at Philadelphia, May 28, 1787.
   See the comparative statement in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom vol. I.,
   807 sq. and III., 607, 653 sq., 668 sq. The Presbyterian churches in
   Scotland, England and Ireland adhere to the original Confession, but
   with an express disavowal of persecuting sentiments. Schaff, I., 799
   sq.

   [98] Goodwin wrote several pamphlets in favor of toleration: An
   Apologeticall Narration, Humbly submitted to the Hon. Houses of
   Partiament (by, Goodwin, Nye, Bridge, Simpson, and Burroughes). London,
   1643 (32pp.). Theomachia; or the grand imprudence of men running the
   hazard of fighting against God in suppressing any way, doctrine or
   practice concerning which they know not certainly whether it be from
   God or no, 1644 (52 pp.). Innocencie's Triumph, 1644 (64 pp.).
   Cretensis; or, a brief Answer to Mr. T. Edwards, his Gangraena, 1646.
   Anapologesiates Antapologias; or, the Inexcusableness of that grand
   Accusation of the Brethren, called Antapologia ... proving the utter
   insufficiency of the Antapoloogist for his great undertaking in behalf
   of the Presbyterian cause: with answers to his arguments or reasons (so
   call'd) for the support thereof ... especially in the point of
   Non-toleration ... Publ. by Authoritie. London, 1646 (253 pp.); with a
   long Preface, dated "From my studie in Coleman street, July 17, 1646; "
   chiefly directed against Edwards. Hagiomastix; or, the Scourge of the
   Saints displayed in his colours of Ignorance and Blood, etc. London,
   1646 (134 pp.). A Postscript or Appendix to a treatise intituled,
   Hagiomastix. London, 1646 (28 pp.). The Apologist condemned; or, a
   Vindication of the Thirty Queries (with their author)concerning the
   power of the Civil Magistrate in Matters of Religion. London, 1653 (32
   pp.). Peace Protected and Discontent Disarmed, etc. London, 1654 (78
   pp.). Sunkretismos; or Dis-Satisfaction Satisfied. London, 1654 (24
   pp.).

   [99] See Schaff, vol. I., 829 sq. and III., 718-723.

   [100] Dexter (p. 660) says: "During the short protectorate of that
   wonderful man, these lowly Independents came into relations so close
   with the ruling religious power, that--in order to fill important
   places--some of them were led to do violence to their noblest
   fundamentals." Several leading Baptists were guilty of the same
   inconsistency.

   [101] See Alex. F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, its History and
   Standards. London, 1883, pp. 203 and 493. "Owen, Goodwin, Simpson, and
   Nye were chiefly concerned in drawing up a list of fundamentals which
   the parliament of 1654 wished to impose on all who claimed toleration.
   Neal gives sixteen of them. The Journal of the House of Commons speaks
   of twenty."

   [102] Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe, II., 48 (N. Y. ed.).

   [103] Ph. Schaff, Church and State in the United States, New York,
   1888.

   [104] The government even indirectly supports it in part by exempting
   church buildings, hospitals, colleges and theological seminaries from
   public taxation, and by appointing chaplains for the army and navy and
   for Congress, in deference to the Christian sentiment of the people.

   [105] A Presbyterian minister, Francis Makemie, was arrested on a
   warrant of the Episcopal Governor Cornby of New York, Jan. 20, 1707,
   for preaching in a private house, without permission, and although he
   was ably defended in a public trial and acquitted on the ground that he
   had been licensed to preach under the Act of Toleration, he had to pay
   the costs of the prosecution as well as the defence to the large amount
   of £83 7s. 6d. See Briggs, American Presbyterianism, New York, 1885,
   pp. 152-154.

   [106] Comp. Dr. Charles J. Stillé, Religious Tests in Provincial
   Pennsylvania. A paper read before the, Hist. Soc. of Penna., Nov. 9,
   1885. Philada., 1886. 58 pp. "It is hard to believe," he says, p. 57,
   "that a man like Franklin, for instance, would at any time have
   approved of religious tests for office; yet Franklin's name is attached
   over and over again in the Qualification Books to the Declaration of
   Faith, which he was forced to make when he entered upon the duties of
   the various offices which be held. He must have been literally forced
   to take such a test; for we find him on the first opportunity, when the
   people of this commonwealth determined to declare their independence
   alike of the Penn family and of the Crown of Great Britain, raising his
   voice against the imposition of such tests as had been taken during the
   Provincial period. Franklin was the president and the ruling spirit of
   the convention which framed the State Constitution of 1776, and to his
   influence has generally been ascribed the very mild form of test which
   by that instrument was substituted for the old one."

   [107] The act of 1776 was completed by an act of October, 1785. See
   Hening, Collection of the Laws of Virginia, vol. XII. 84.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 13. Chronological Limits.

   The Reformation period begins with Luther's Theses, a.d. 1517, and ends
   with the Peace of Westphalia, a.d. 1648. The last event brought to a
   close the terrible Thirty Years' War and secured a legal existence to
   the Protestant faith (the Lutheran and Reformed Confession) throughout
   Germany.

   The year 1648 marks also an important epoch in the history of English
   and Scotch Protestantism, namely, the ratification by the Long
   Parliament of the doctrinal standards of the Westminster Assembly of
   Divines (1643 to 1652), which are still in use among the Presbyterian
   Churches in England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States.

   Within this period of one hundred and thirty-one years there are
   several minor epochs, and the dates vary in different countries.

   The German Reformation, which is essentially Lutheran, divides itself
   naturally into four sub-periods:1. From 1517 to the Augsburg Diet and
   Augsburg Confession, 1530. 2. From 1530 to the so-called "Peace of
   Augsburg," 1555. 3. From 1555 to the "Formula of Concord," 1577, which
   completed the Lutheran system of doctrine, or 1580 (when the "Book of
   Concord" was published and enforced). 4. From 1580 to the conclusion of
   the Thirty Years' War, 1648.

   The Scandinavian Reformation followed closely in the path of the
   Lutheran Reformation of Germany, and extends, likewise, to the Thirty
   Years' War, in which Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, took a leading part
   as defender of Protestantism. The Reformation triumphed in Sweden in
   1527, in Denmark and Norway in 1537.

   The Swiss Reformation was begun by Zwingli and completed by Calvin, and
   is accordingly divided into two acts: 1. The Reformation of German
   Switzerland to the death of Zwingli, 1517 to 1531. 2. The Reformation
   of French Switzerland to the death of Calvin, 1564, or we may say, to
   the death of Beza, 1605.

   The introduction of the Reformed church into Germany, especially the
   Palatinate, falls within the second period.

   In the stormy history of French Protestantism, the years 1559, 1598 and
   1685, mark as many epochs. In 1559, the first national synod was held
   in Paris and gave the Reformed congregations a compact organization by
   the adoption of the Gallican Confession and the Presbyterian form of
   government. In 1598, the Reformed church secured a legal existence and
   a limited measure of freedom by the edict of Nantes, which King Henry
   IV. gave to his former fellow-religionists. But his bigoted grandson,
   Louis XIV., revoked the edict in 1685. Since that time the French
   Reformed church continued like a burning bush in the desert; while
   thousands of her sons reluctantly left their native land, and
   contributed, by their skill, industry and piety, to the prosperity of
   Switzerland, Holland, Germany, England, and North America.

   The Reformation in Holland includes the heroic war of emancipation from
   the Spanish yoke and passed through the bloody bath of martyrdom, until
   after unspeakable sufferings under Charles V. and Philip II., the
   Utrecht Union of the seven Northern Provinces (formed in 1579), was
   reluctantly acknowledged by Spain in 1609. Then followed the internal
   theological war between Arminianism and Calvinism, which ended in the
   victory of the latter at the National Synod of Dort, 1619.

   The progressive stages of the English Reformation, which followed a
   course of its own, were influenced by the changing policy of the
   rulers, and are marked by the reigns of Henry VIII., 1527-1547; of
   Edward VI., 1547-1553; the papal reaction and period of Protestant
   martyrdom under Queen Mary, 1553-1558; the re-establishment of
   Protestantism under Queen Elizabeth, 1558-1603. Then began the second
   Reformation, which was carried on by the people against their rulers.
   It was the struggle between Puritanism and the semi-popery of the
   Stuart dynasty. Puritanism achieved a temporary triumph, deposed and
   executed Charles I. and Archbishop Laud; but Puritanism as a national
   political power died with Cromwell, and in 1660 Episcopacy and the
   Prayer Book were restored under Charles II., till another revolution
   under William and Mary in 1688 made an end to the treacherous rule of
   the Stuarts and gave toleration to the Dissenters, who hereafter
   organized themselves in separate denominations, and represent the left
   wing of English Protestantism.

   The Reformation in Scotland, under the lead of John Knox (1505-1572),
   the Luther of the North, completed its first act in 1567 with the legal
   recognition and establishment by the Scotch Parliament. The second act
   was a struggle with the papal reaction under Queen Mary of Scots, till
   1590. The third act may be called the period of anti-Prelacy and union
   with English Puritanism, and ended in the final triumph of
   Presbyterianism in 1690. Since that time, the question of patronage and
   the relation of church and state have been the chief topics of
   agitation and irritation in the Church of Scotland and gave rise to a
   number of secessions; while the Westminster standards of faith and
   discipline have not undergone any essential alteration.

   The Reformed faith secured a partial success and toleration in Poland,
   Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia and Moravia, but suffered severely by
   the Jesuitical reaction, especially in Bohemia. In Italy and Spain the
   Reformation was completely suppressed; and it is only since the
   overthrow of the temporal rule of the Pope in 1871, that Protestants
   are allowed to hold public worship in Rome and to build churches or
   chapels.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 14. General Literature on the Reformation.

   SOURCES.

   I. On The Protestant Side: (1) The works of the Reformers, especially
   Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox. They will be
   quoted in the chapters relating to their history.

   (2) Contemporary Historians: Joh. Sleidan (Prof. of law in Strassburg,
   d. 1556): De Statu Religionis et Reipublicae Carolo V. Caesare
   commentarii. Libri XXVI. Argentor. 1555 fol., best ed. by Am Ende,
   Francof. ad M. 1785-86, 3 vols. Engl. transl. by Bohun, London, 1689, 3
   vols. fol. French transl. with the notes of Le Courayer, 1767. Embraces
   the German and Swiss Reformation.

   The Annales Reformationis of Spalatin, and the Historia Reformationis
   of Fr. Myconius, refer only to the Lutheran Reformation. So, also,
   Löscher's valuable collection of documents, 3 vols. See below § 15.

   II. Roman Catholic: (1) Official documents. Leonis X. P. M. Regesta,
   ed. by Cardinal Hergenröther under the auspices of Pope Leo XIII., from
   the Vatican archives. Freiburg i. B. 1884 sqq., 12 fascic. The first
   three parts contain 384 pages to a.d. 1514.--Monumenta Reformationis
   Lutheranae ex tabulariis secretioribus S. Sedis, 1521-'25, ed. by
   Petrus Balan, Ratisbonae, 1884 (589 pages). Contains the acts relating
   to the Diet of Worms, with the reports of Aleander, the papal legate,
   and the letters of Clement VII. from 1523-'25. It includes a document
   of 1513, heretofore unknown, which disproves the illegitimate birth of
   Clement VII. and represents him as the son of Giuliano de Medici and
   his wife, Florets. Monumenta Saeculi XVI. Historiam illustrantia, ed.
   by Balan, vol. I. Oeniponte, 1885 (489 pages).

   (2) Controversial writings: Joh. Eck (d. 1563): Contra Ludderum, 1530.
   2 Parts fol. Polemical treatises on the Primacy, Penance, the Mass,
   Purgatory etc. Jo. Cochlaeus (canon of Breslau, d. 1552): Commentaria
   de Actis et Scriptis Lutheri ab Anno Dom. 1517 ad A. 1547 fideliter
   conscripta. Mogunt. 1549 fol.; Par. 1565; Colon. 1568.--Laur. Surius (a
   learned Carthusian, d. at Cologne, 1578): Commentarius rerum in orbe
   gestarum ab a. 1500-1564. Colon. 1567. Against Sleidan.

   Historical Representations.

   I. Protestant Works.

   (1) The respective sections in the General Church Histories of Schröckh
   (Kirchengesch. seit der Reformation, Leipzig, 1804-'12, 10 vols.),
   Mosheim, Gieseler (Bd. III. Abth. I. and II., 1840 and 1852; Engl.
   transl. N. Y. vols. IV. and V., 1862 and 1880), Baur (Bd. IV. 1863),
   Hagenbach (vol. III., also separately publ. 4th ed. 1870; Engl. transl.
   by Miss Eveline Moore, Edinburgh, 1878, 2 vols.; especially good on the
   Zwinglian Reformation). More briefly treated in the compends of
   Guericke, Neidner, Hase (11th ed. 1886), Ebrard, Herzog (vol. IIIrd),
   Kurtz (10th ed. 887, vol. IInd).

   All these works pay special attention to the Continental Reformation,
   but very little to that of England and Scotland.

   Neander comes down only to 1430; his lectures on modern church history
   (which I heard in 1840) were never published. Gieseler's work is most
   valuable for its literature down to 1852, and extracts from the
   sources, but needs an entire reconstruction, which is contemplated by
   Prof. Brieger at Leipzig.

   (2) Jean Henri Merle d'aubigne (usually miscalled D'Aubigné, which is
   simply an addition indicating the place of his ancestors, d. 1872):
   Histoire de la reformation du 16. siècle, Paris, 1835-'53, 5 vols., 4th
   ed. 1861 sqq.; and Histoire de la réformation en Europe au temps du
   Calvin, Par., 1863-'78, 8 vols. (including a posthumous vol.). Also in
   German by Runkel (Stuttgart, 1848 sqq.), and especially in English (in
   several editions, some of them mutilated). Best Engl. ed. by Longman,
   Green & Co., London, 1865 sqq.; best Am. ed. by Carter, New York,
   1870-'79, the first work in 5, the second in 8 vols. Merle's History,
   owing to its evangelical fervor, intense Protestantism and dramatic
   eloquence, has had an enormous circulation in England and America
   through means of the Tract Societies and private publishers.

   H. Stebbing: History of the Reformation, London, 1836, 2 vols.

   G. Waddington (Anglican, d. 1869): A History of the Reformation on the
   Continent. London, 1841, 3 vols. (Only to the death of Luther, 1546.)

   F. A. Holzhauzen: Der Protestantismus nach seiner geschichtl.
   Entstehung, Begründung und Fortbildung. Leipzig, 1846-'59, 3 vols.
   Comes down to the Westphalian Treaty. The author expresses his
   standpoint thus (III. XV.): "Die christliche Kirche ist ihrer Natur
   nach wesentlich Eine, und der kirchliche Auflösungs-process, welcher
   durch die Reformation herbeigeführt worden ist, kann keinen anderen
   Zweck haben, als ein neues höhes positives Kirchenthum herzustellen."

   B. Ter Haar (of Utrecht) Die Reformationsgeschichte in Schilderungen.
   Transl. from the Dutch by C. Gross. Gotha, 5th ed. 1856, 2 vols.

   Dan. Schenkel (d. 1885): Die Refomatoren und die Reformation.
   Wiesbaden. 1856. Das Wesen des Protestantismus aus den Quellen des Ref.
   zeitalters. Schaffhausen, 1862, 3 vols.

   Charles Hardwick: (Anglican, d. 1859): A History of the Christian
   Church during the Reformation. Cambridge and London, 1856. Third ed.
   revised by W. Stubbs (bishop of Chester), 1873.

   J. Tulloch: (Scotch Presbyt., d. 1886): Leaders of the Reformation:
   Luther, Calvin, Latimer, Knox. Edinb., 1859; 3d ed. 1883.

   L. Häusser (d. 1867): Geschichte des Zeitalters der Reformation,
   1517-1648. ed. by Oncken, Berlin, 1868 (867 pages). Abridged EngI.
   transl. by Mrs. Sturge, N. Y., 1874.

   E. L. Th. Henke (d. 1872): Neuere Kirgesch. ed. by Dr. Gass, Halle,
   1874, 2 vols. The first vol. treats of the Reformation.

   Fr. Seebohm: The Era of the Protestant Revolution. London and N. York,
   1874.

   J. A. Wylie: History of Protestantism. London, 1875-77, 3 vols.

   George P. Fisher (Prof. of Church History in Yale College): The
   Reformation. New York, 1873. A comprehensive work, clear, calm,
   judicial, with a useful bibliographical Appendix (p. 567-591).

   J. M. Lindsay (Presbyt.): The Reformation. Edinb., 1882. (A mere
   sketch.)

   Charles Beard (Unitarian): The Reformation in its relation to Modern
   Thought and Knowledge. Hibbert Lectures. London, 1883; 2d ed., 1885.
   Very able. German translation by F. Halverscheid. Berlin, 1884.

   John F. Hurst (Method. Bishop): Short History of the Reformation. New
   York, 1884 (125 pages).

   Ludwig Keller: Die Reformation und die älteren Reformparteien. Leipz.,
   1885 (516 pages). In sympathy with the Waldenses and Anabaptists.

   Two series of biographies of the Reformers, by a number of German
   scholars the Lutheran series in 8 vols., Elberfeld, 1861-'75, and the
   Reformed (Calvinistic) series in 10 vols., Elberfeld, 1857-'63. The
   Lutheran series was introduced by Nitzsch, the Reformed by Hagenbach.
   The several biographies will be mentioned in the proper places.

   (3) For the general history of the world and the church during and
   after the period of the Reformation, the works of Leopold von Ranke (d.
   1886) are of great importance, namely: Fürsten und Völker von Südeuropa
   im 16. und 17. Jahrh. (Berlin 1827, 4th ed. enlarged 1877); Geschichten
   der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494-1514 (3d ed. 1885);
   Die römischen Päpste, ihre Kirche und ihr Staat im 16. und 17. Jahrh.
   (Berlin, 8th ed. 1885, 3 vols. Engl. trans. by Sarah Austin, Lond. 4th
   ed. 1867, 3 vols.); Französische Geschichte im 16. und 17. Jahrh.
   (Stuttgart, 1852, 4th ed. 1877, 6 vols.); Englische Geschichte
   vornehmlich im 16. u. 17. Jahrh. (4th ed. 1877, 6 vols.; Engl. transl.
   publ. by the Clarendon Press); and especially his classical Deutsche
   Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Berlin, 1839-'43, 6th ed.
   1880-'82, in 6 vols.; transl. in part by S. Austin, 1845-'47, 3 vols.).
   Ranke is a master of objective historiography from the sources in
   artistic grouping of the salient points, and is in religious and
   patriotic sympathy with the German Reformation; while yet he does full
   justice to the Catholic church and the papacy as a great power in the
   history of religion and civilization. In his 85th year he began to
   dictate in manly vigor a Universal History down to the time of Emperor
   Henry IV. and Pope Gregory VII., 1881-86; to which were added 2
   posthumous vols. by Dove and Winter, 1888, 9 vols. in all. His library
   was bought for the University in Syracuse, N. Y.

   For the general literature see Henry Hallam: Introduction to the
   Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries. London,
   1842, etc. N. York ed., 1880, in 4 vols.

   II. Roman Catholic Works.

   (1) The respective sections in the General Church Histories of Möhler
   (d. 1838, ed. from lectures by Gams, Regensburg, 1867-1868, 3 vols.;
   the third vol. treats of the Reformation), Alzog (10th ed. 1882, 2
   vols.; Engl. transl. by Pabish and Byrne, Cincinnati, 1874 sqq., 3
   vols.), Kraus (2d ed. 1882), and Cardinal Hergenröther (third ed.
   1885). Comp. also, in part, the Histories of the Council of Trent by
   Sarpi (d. 1623), and Pallavicini (d. 1667).

   (2) Thuanus (De Thou, a moderate Catholic, d. 1617); Historiarum sui
   Temporis libri 138. Orleans (Geneva), 1620 sqq., 5 vols. fol. and
   London, 1733, 7 vols. fol.; French transl. London, 1734, 16 vols. 4to.
   Goes from 1546 to 1607.

   Louis Maimbourg (Jesuit, d. at Paris, 1686): Histoire du Lutheranisme
   Paris, 1680; Histoire du Calvinisme, 1682. Controversial, and inspired
   by partisan zeal; severely handled by R. Bayle in his Critique générale
   de l'histoire du Calvinisme de M., Amsterd., 1684.

   Bp. Bossuet (d. 1704): Histoire des variations des églises
   protestantes. Paris, 1688, 2 vols. and later edd., also in his
   collected works, 1819 sqq. and 1836 sqq. English transl., Dublin, 1829,
   2 vols. German ed. by Mayer, Munich. 1825, 4 vols. A work of great
   ability, but likewise polemical rather than historical. It converted
   Gibbon to Romanism, but left him at last a skeptic, like Bayle, who
   was, also, first a Protestant, then a Romanist for a short season.

   Kaspar Riffel: Kirchengesch. Der Neusten Zeit. Mainz, 1844-47, 3 vols.

   Martin John Spalding (since 1864 Archbishop of Baltimore, d. 1872):
   History of the Protest. Reformation in Germany and Switzerland, and in
   England, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, France., and Northern
   Europe. Louisville, 1860; 8th ed., revised and enlarged. Baltimore,
   1875, 2 vols. No Index. Against Merle D'Aubigné. The Archbishop charges
   D'Aubigné (as he calls him) with being a "bitter partisan, wholly
   unreliable as an historian," and says of his work that it is "little
   better than a romance," as he "omits more than half the facts, and
   either perverts or draws on his imagination for the remainder." His own
   impartiality and reliableness as an historian may be estimated from the
   following judgments of the Reformers: "Luther, while under the
   influence of the Catholic Church, was probably a moderately good man;
   he was certainly a very bad one after he left its communion "(I.
   72)."Heu! quantum mutatus ab illo!" (77). "His violence often drove him
   to the very verge of insanity .... He occasionally inflicted on
   Melanchthon personal chastisement" (87). Spalding quotes from Audin,
   his chief authority (being apparently quite ignorant of German):
   "Luther was possessed not by one, but by a whole troop of devils" (89).
   Zwingli (or Zuingle, as he calls him) he charges with "downright
   paganism" (I. 175), and makes fun of his marriage and the marriages of
   the other Reformers, especially Bucer, who "became the husband of no
   less than three ladies in succession: and one of them had been already
   married three times--all too, by a singular run of good luck, in the
   reformation line" (176). And this is all that we learn of the Reformer
   of Strassburg. For Calvin the author seems to draw chiefly on the
   calumnies of Audin, as Audin drew on those of Bolsec. He describes him
   as "all head and no heart;" "he crushed the liberties of the people in
   the name of liberty;" "he combined the cruelty of Danton and
   Robespierre with the eloquence of Murat and Mirabeau, though he was
   much cooler, and therefore more successful than any one of them all; he
   was a very Nero." Spalding gives credit to Bolsec's absurd stories of
   the monstrous crimes and horrible death of Calvin, so fully
   contradicted by his whole life and writings and the testimonies of his
   nearest friends, as Beza, Knox, etc. (I. 375, 384, 386, 388, 391). And
   such a work by a prelate of high character and position seems to be the
   principal source from which American Roman Catholics draw their
   information of the Reformation and of Protestantism!

   The historico-polemical works of Döllinger and Janssen belong to the
   history of

   the German Reformation and will be noticed in the next section.

   BOOK 1.

   THE GERMAN REFORMATION TILL THE DIET OF

   AUGSBURG, a.d. 1530.

   ----------
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   CHAPTER II.

   LUTHER'S TRAINING FOR THE REFORMATION, A.D. L483-1517.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 15. Literature of the German Reformation.

   Sources.

   I. Protestant Sources:

   (1) The Works of the Reformers, especially Luther and Melanchthon. See
   § § 17, 32. The reformatory writings of Luther, from 1517-1524, are in
   vol. XV. of Walch's ed., those from 1525-1537 in vol. XVI., those from
   1538-1546 in vol. XVII. See also the Erlangen ed., vols. 24-32 (issued
   separately in a second ed. 1883 sqq.), and the Weimar ed., vol. I. sqq.

   (2) Contemporary writers:

   G. Spalatin (Chaplain of Frederick the Wise and Superintendent in
   Altenburg, d. 1545): Annales Reformationis oder Jahrbücher von der
   Reform. Lutheri (to 1543). Ed. by Cyprian, Leipz., 1718.

   Frid. Myconius (or Mekum, Superintendent at Gotha, d. 1546): Historia
   Reformationis vom Jahr Christi 1518-1542. Ed. by Cyprian, Leipzig,
   1718.

   M. Ratzeberger (a physician, and friend of Luther, d. 1559): Luther und
   seine Zeit. Ed. from MS. in Gotha by Neudecker, Jena, 1850 (284 pp.).

   (3) Documentary collections:

   V. E. Löscher (d. 1749): Vollständige Reformations=Acta und Documenta
   (for the years 1517-'19). Leipzig, 1720-'29, 3 vols.

   Ch. G. Neudecker: Urkunden aus der Reformationszeit, Cassel, 1836;
   Actenstücke aus der Zeit der Reform., Nürnberg, 1838; Neue Beiträge,
   Leipzig, 1841.

   C. E. Förstemann: Archiv. f. d. Gesch. der Reform., Halle, 1831 sqq.;
   Neues Urkundenbuch, Hamburg, 1842.

   Th. Brieger: Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Reformation.
   Gotha, 1884 sqq. (Part I. Aleander und Luther, 1521.)

   II. Roman Catholic Sources . See § 14, p. 89.

   Histories.

   I. Protestant Historians :

   Lud. A Seckendorf (a statesman of thorough education and exemplary
   integrity, d. 1692): Commentarius historicus et apologeticus de
   Lutheranismo. Francof. et Lips., 1688; Lipsiae, 1694, fol. Against the
   Jesuit Maimbourg.

   Chr. A. Salig (d. 1738): Vollständige Historie der Augsburger
   Confession (from 1517-1562). Halle, 1730-'35. 3 vols.

   G. J. Planck (d. 1833): Geschichte der Entstehung, der Veränderungen
   und der Bildung unseres protest. Lehrbegriffs bis zur Einführung der
   Concordienformel. Leipzig, 2d ed., 1791-1800, 6 vols. Important for the
   doctrinal controversies in the Luth. Church. Followed by the Geschichte
   der protest. Theologie von der Konkordienformel an his in die Mitte des
   achtzehnten Jahrh. Göttingen, 1831, 1 vol.

   H. G. Kreussler: D. Mart. Luthers Andenken in Münzen nebst
   Lebensbeschreibungen merkwürdiger Zeitgenossen desselben. Mit 47
   Kupfern und der Ansicht Wittenbergs und Eisenachs zu Luthers Zeit.
   Leipzig, 1818. Chiefly interesting for the numerous illustrations.

   Phil. Marheinecke (d. 1846): Geschichte der teutschen Reformation.
   Berlin, 2d ed., 1831, 4 vols. One of the best books, written in
   Luther-like popularity of style.

   K. Hagen: Deutschlands literar. und relig. Verhältnisse im
   Reformationszeitalter. Erlangen, 1841-'44, sqq., 3 vols.

   CH. G. Neudecker: Gesch. des evang. Protestantismus in Deutschland.
   Leipzig, 1844, sq., 2 vols.

   C. Hundeshagen (d. 1873): Der deutsche Protestantismus. Frankfurt,
   1846, 3d ed. 1850. Discusses the genius of the Reformation as well as
   modern church questions.

   H. Heppe (German Reformed, d. 1879): Gesch. des deutschen
   Protestantismus in den Jahren 1555-'85. Marburg, 1852 sqq., 4 vols., 2d
   ed., 1865 sq. He wrote, also, a number of other books on the
   Reformation, especially in Hesse.

   Merle d'Aubigné's History of the Reformation, see § 14. The first
   division treats of the German Reformation and is translated into German
   by Runkel, Stuttgart, 1848-1854, 5 vols., republ. by the American Tract
   society. Several English editions; London and New York.

   Wilh. Gass: Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik. Berlin, 1854-'67,
   4 vols.

   G. Plitt: Geschichte der evang. Kirche bis 1530. Erlangen, 1867.

   Is. A. Dorner (d. 1884): Geschichte. der protestantischen Theologie,
   besonders in Deutschland. München, 1867. The first Book, pp. 1-420,
   treats of the Reformation period of Germany and Switzerland. English
   translation, Edinburgh, 1871, 2 vols.

   Ch. P. Krauth (d. 1882): The Conservative Reformation. Philadelphia,
   1872. A dogmatico-historical vindication of Lutheranism.

   K. F. A. Kahnis (d. 1888): Die deutsche Reformation. Leipzig, vol. I.
   1872 (till 1520, unfinished).

   G. Weber: Zur Geschichte des Reformationszeitalters. Leipzig, 1874.

   Fr. v. Bezold: Gesch. der deutschen Reformation. Berlin, 1886.

   The Elberfeld series of biographies of the Lutheran Reformers, with
   extracts from their writings, 1861-1875. It begins with C. Schmidt's
   Melanchthon, and ends with Köstlin's Luther (the large work in 2 vols.,
   revised 1883).

   Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte. Halle, 1883 sqq. A
   series of monographs on special topics in the Reformation history,
   especially that of Germany, published by a Society formed in the year
   of the Luther celebration for the literary defence of Protestantism
   against Romanism. Kolde, Benrath, Holdewey, Bossert, Walther, are among
   the contributors. The series includes also an essay on Wiclif by
   Buddensieg (1885), one on the Revocation of the edict of Nantes by
   Theod. Schott (1885), and one on Ignatius of Loyola by E. Gothein
   (1885).

   Of Secular histories of Germany during the Reformation period, comp.
   especially, Leopold von Ranke: Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalter der
   Reformation (6th ed., 1881, 6 vols.), a most important work, see § 14.
   Also, Karl Ad. Menzel (d. 1855): Neuere Geschichte der Deutschen seit
   der Reformation. Berlin, 2d ed., 1854 sq., 6 vols. Wolfgang Menzel (d.
   1873): Geschichte der Deutschen, 6th ed., 1872 sq., 3 vols. L. Stacke:
   Deutsche Geschichte. Bielefeld u. Leipzig, 1881, 2 vols. (Vol. II. by
   W. Boehm, pp. 37-182.) Gottlob Egelhaaf (Dr. Phil., Prof. in the
   Karls-Gymnasium at Heilbronn): Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der
   Reformation. Gekrönte Preisschrift des Allgemeinen Vereins für Deutsche
   Literatur. Berlin, 1885. In the spirit of Ranke's great work on the
   same topic, with polemic reference to Janssen. It extends from 1517 to
   the Peace of Augsburg, 1555. (450 pages.)

   II. Roman Catholic Historians. See the Lit. in § 14.

   Ignatius Döllinger (Prof. of Ch. Hist. in Munich, since 1870 Old
   Catholic): Die Reformation, ihre innere Entwicklung und ihre Wirkung im
   Umfange des Luther. Bekenntnisses. Regensburg, 1846-'48, 3 vols.; 2d
   ed., 1853. A learned collection of testimonies against the Reformation
   and its effects from contemporary apostates, humanists, and the
   Reformers themselves (Luther and Melanchthon), and those of their
   followers who complain bitterly of the decay of morals and the
   dissensions in the Lutheran church. The author has, nevertheless, after
   he seceded from the Roman communion, passed a striking judgment in
   favor of Luther's greatness.

   Karl Werner: Geschichte der kathol. Theologie in Deutschland. München,
   1866.

   Joh. Janssen: Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des
   Mittelalters. Freiburg, i. B. 1876-'88, 6 vols. (down to 1618). This
   masterpiece of Ultramontane historiography is written with great
   learning and ability from a variety of sources (especially the archives
   of Frankfurt, Mainz, Trier, Zürich, and the Vatican), and soon passed
   through twelve editions. It called out able defences of the Reformation
   by Kawerau (five articles in Luthardt's "Zeitschrift für kirchliche
   Wissenschaft und Kirchl. Leben," 1882 and 1883), Köstlin, Lenz,
   Schweizer, Ebrard, Baumgarten, and others, to whom Janssen calmly
   replied in An meine Kritiker, Freiburg, i. B., tenth thousand, 1883
   (227 pp.), and Ein Wort an meine Kritiker, Freib. i. B., twelfth
   thousand, 1883 (144 pp.). He disclaims all "tendency," and professes to
   aim only at the historical truth. Admitted, but his standpoint is
   false, because he views the main current of modern history as an
   apostasy and failure; while it is an onward and progressive movement of
   Christianity under the guidance of Divine providence and the ever
   present spirit of its Founder. He reads history through the mirror of
   Vatican Romanism, and we need not wonder that Pope Leo XIII. has
   praised Janssen as "a light of historic science and a man of profound
   learning."

   Janssen gives in each volume, in alphabetical order, very full lists of
   books and pamphlets, Catholic and Protestant, on the different
   departments of the history of Germany from the close of the fifteenth
   to the close of the sixteenth century. See vol. I. xxvii.-xliv.; vol.
   II. xvii.-xxviii.; vol. III. xxv.-xxxix.; vol. IV. xviii.-xxxi.; vol.
   V. xxv.-xliii.

   For political history: Fr. v. Buchholz: Ferdinand I. Wien, 1832 sqq., 9
   vols. Hurter: Ferdinand II. Schaffhausen, 1850 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 16. Germany and the Reformation.

   Germany invented the art of printing and produced the Reformation.
   These are the two greatest levers of modern civilization. While other
   nations sent expeditions in quest of empires beyond the sea, the
   Germans, true to their genius of inwardness, descended into the depths
   of the human soul and brought to light new ideas and principles.
   Providence, it has been said, gave to France the dominion of the land,
   to England the dominion of the sea, to Germany the dominion of the air.
   The air is the region of speculation, but also the necessary condition
   of life on the land and the sea.

   The characteristic traits which Tacitus ascribes to the heathen
   Germans, contain already the germ of Protestantism. The love of
   personal freedom was as strong in them as the love of authority was in
   the Roman race. They considered it unworthy of the gods to confine them
   within walls, or to represent them by images; they preferred an inward
   spiritual worship which communes directly with the Deity, to an outward
   worship which appeals to the senses through forms and ceremonies, and
   throws visible media between the finite and the infinite mind. They
   resisted the aggression of heathen Rome, and they refused to submit to
   Christian Rome when it was forced upon them by Charlemagne.

   But Christianity as a religion was congenial to their instincts. They
   were finally Christianized, and even thoroughly Romanized by Boniface
   and his disciples. Yet they never felt quite at home under the rule of
   the papacy. The mediaeval conflict of the emperor with the pope kept up
   a political antagonism against foreign rule; the mysticism of the
   thirteenth and fourteenth centuries nursed the love for a piety of less
   form and more heart, and undermined the prevailing mechanical legalism;
   dissatisfaction with the pope increased with his exactions and abuses,
   until at last, under the lead of a Saxon monk and priest, all the
   national forces combined against the anti-christian tyranny and shook
   it of forever. He carried with him the heart of Germany. No less than
   one hundred grievances against Roman misrule were brought before the
   Diet of Nürnberg in 1522. [108] Erasmus says that when Luther published
   his Theses all the world applauded him. [109] It is not impossible that
   all Germany would have embraced the Reformation if its force had not
   been weakened and its progress arrested by excesses and internal
   dissensions, which gave mighty aid to the Romanist reaction.

   Next to Germany, little Switzerland, Holland, Scandinavia, England and
   Scotland, inhabited by kindred races, were most active in completing
   that great act of emancipation from popery and inaugurating an era of
   freedom and independence.

   Nationality has much to do with the type of Christianity. The Oriental
   church is identified with the Greek and Slavonic races, and was not
   affected by the Reformation of the sixteenth century; hence she is not
   directly committed for or against it, and is less hostile to
   evangelical Protestantism than to Romanism, although she agrees, in
   doctrine, discipline and worship, far more with the latter. The Roman
   Catholic Church retained her hold upon the Latin races, which were, it
   first superficially touched by the Reformation, but reacted, and have
   ever since been vacillating between popery and infidelity, or between
   despotism and revolution. Even the French, who under Henry IV. were on
   the very verge of becoming Protestant, are as a nation more inclined to
   swing from Bossuet to Voltaire than to Calvin; although they will
   always have a respectable minority of intelligent Protestants. The
   Celtic races are divided; the Welsh and Scotch became intensely
   Protestant, the Irish as intensely Romanist. The Teutonic or Germanic
   nations produced the Reformation chiefly, but not exclusively; for the
   French Calvin was the greatest theologian among the Reformers, and has
   exerted a stronger influence in shaping the doctrine and discipline of
   Protestantism outside of Germany than any of them.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [108] The famous "centum gravamina adversus sedem Romanam totumque
   ecclesiastcum ordinem."

   [109] "Totus illi magno consensu applausit." In a letter of Dec. 12,
   1524, to Duke George of Saxony who was opposed to the Reformation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 17. The Luther Literature.

   The Luther literature is immense and has received large additions since
   1883. The richest collections are in the Royal Library at Berlin
   (including Dr. Knaake's); in the public libraries of Dresden, Weimar,
   Wittenberg, Wolfenbüttel, München; in America, in the Theol. Seminary
   at Hartford (Congregationalist), which purchased the Beck collection of
   over 1,200 works, and in the Union Theol. Sem., New York, which has the
   oldest editions.

   For the Luther literature comp. J. A. Fabricius: Centifolium
   Lutheranum, Hamburg, 1728 and 1730, 2 Parts; Vogel: Bibliotheca
   biographica Lutherana, Halle, 1851, 145 pages; John Edmands: Reading
   Notes on Luther, Philada., 1883; Beck (publisher): Bibliotheca
   Lutherana, Nördlingen, 1883; (185 pages, with titles of 1236 books, now
   at Hartford), 1884: Bibliographie der Luther-Literatur des J. 1883,
   Frankf. a. M. 1884, enlarged ed. 1887 (52 and 24 pages, incomplete).

   luther's works.

   Oldest editions: Wittenberg, 12 German vols., 1539-'59, and 7 Latin,
   1545-'58; Jena, 8 German and 4 Latin vols., 1555-'58, with 2
   supplements by Aurifaber, 1564-'65; Altenburg, 10 vols., 1661-'64;
   Leipzig, 22 vols., 1729-'40, fol.--The three best editions are:

   (1) The Halle edition by Johann Georg Walch, Halle, 1740-1750, in 24
   vols., 4to. Republished with corrections and additions by Dr. Walther,
   Stöckhardt, Kähler, etc., Concordia College, St. Louis, 1880 sqq., 25
   vols.

   (2) The Erlangen-Frankfurt ed. by Plochmann, Irmischer, and Enders,
   etc., Erlangen, and Frankfurt a. M., 1827 sqq., 2d ed., 1862-1883, 101
   vols. 8vo. (not yet finished). German writings, 67 vols.; Opera Latina,
   25 vols.; Com. in Ep. and Gal., 3 vols.; Opera Latina varii argumenti
   ad reformationis Hist. pertinentia, 7 vols. The most important for our
   purpose are the Reformations-historische Schriften (9 vols., second
   ed., 1883-'85), and the Briefwechsel (of which the first vol. appeared
   in 1884; 6 vols. are promised).

   (3) The Weimar edition (the fourth centennial memorial ed., patronized
   by the Emperor of Germany), by Drs. Knaake, Kawerau, Bertheau, and
   other Luther scholars, Weimar, 1883 sqq. This, when completed, will be
   the critical standard edition. It gives the works in chronological
   order and strict reproduction of the first prints, with the variations
   of later edd., even the antiquated and inconsistent spelling, which
   greatly embarrasses the reader not thoroughly familiar with German. The
   first volume contains Luther's writings from 1512-1518; the second
   (1884), the writings from 1518-1519; vols. III. and IV. (1885-'6), the
   Commentaries on the Psalms; vol. VI. (1888), the continuation of the
   reformatory writings till 1520; several other vols. are in press.

   I have usually indicated, from which of these three editions the
   quotations are made. The last was used most as far as it goes, and is
   quoted as the "Weimar ed."

   The first collected ed. of Luther's German works appeared in 1539 with
   a preface, in which he expresses a wish that all his books might be
   forgotten and perish, and the Bible read more instead. (See Erl. Frkf.
   ed. I., pp. 1-6.)

   Selections of Luther's Works by Pfizer (Frankf., 1837, sqq.);
   Zimmermann (Frankf., 1846 sq.); Otto von Gerlach (Berlin, 1848, 10
   vols., containing the Reformatorische Schriften).

   The Letters of Luther were separately edited by De Wette, Berlin, 1825,
   sqq., 5 vols.; vol. VI. by J. C. Seidemann, 1856 (716 pp., with an
   addition of Lutherbriefe, 1859); supplemented by C. A. H. Burkhardt,
   Leipz., 1866 (524 pp.); a revised ed. with comments by Dr. E. L. Enders
   (pastor at Oberrad near Frankfurt a. M.), 1884 sqq. (in the Erl. Frankf
   ed.). The first volume contains the letters from 1507 to March, 1519.
   For selection see C. Alfred Hase: Lutherbriefe in Auswahl und
   Uebersetzung, Leipzig, 1867 (420 pages). Th. Kolde: Analecta Lutherana,
   Briefe und Actenstücke zur Geschichte Luther's. Gotha, 1883. Contains
   letters of Luther and to Luther, gathered with great industry from
   German and Swiss archives and libraries.

   Additional Works of Luther:

   The Table Talk of Luther is best edited by Aurifaber, 1566, etc.
   (reprinted in Walch's ed. vol. xxii.); by Förstemann and Bindseil,
   Leipzig, 1844-'48, 4 vols. (the German Table Talk); by Bindseil:
   Martini Lutheri Colloquia, Latina, etc., Lemgoviae et Detmoldae,
   1863-'66, 3 vols.; and in the Frankf. Erl. ed., vols. 57-62. Dr. Conr.
   Cordatus: Tagebuch über Dr. Luther geführt, 1537, first edited by Dr.
   Wrampelmeyer, Halle, 1885, 521 pages. Last and best edition by Hoppe,
   St. Louis, 1887 (vol. xxii. of Am. ed. of Walch).

   Georg Buchwald: Andreas Poach's handschriftl. Sammlung ungedruckter
   Predigten D. Martin Luthers aus den Jahren 1528 bis 1546. Aus dem
   Originale zum ersten Mal herausgegeben. Leipzig, 1884, to embrace 3
   vols. (Only the first half of the first vol., published 1884, and the
   first half of the third vol., 1885; very few copies sold.) The MS.
   collection of Andreas Poach in the public library at Zwickau embraces
   nine volumes of Luther's sermons from 1528-1546. They are based on
   stenographic reports of Diaconus Georg Rörer of Wittenberg (ordained by
   Luther 1525, d. at Halle, 1557), who took full Latin notes of Luther's
   German sermons, retaining, however, in strange medley a number of
   German words and phrases.

   P. Tschackert: Unbekannte Predigten u. Scholien Luthers, Berlin, 1888.
   MSS. of sermons from Oct. 23, 1519, to April 2, 1521, discovered in the
   University Library at Königsberg. They will be publ. in the Weimar
   edition.

   II. Biographies of Luther :

   (1) By contemporaries, who may be included in the sources.

   Melanchthon wrote Vita Lutheri, a brief but weighty sketch, 1546, often
   reprinted, translated into German by Matthias Ritter, 1555, with
   Melanchthon's account of Luther's death to the students in the lecture
   room, the funeral orations of Bugenhagen and Cruciger (157 pages); a
   new transl. by Zimmermann, with preface by G. J. Planck, Göttingen,
   1813; ed. of the original in Vitae quatuor Reformatorum., Lutheri a
   Melanchthone, Melanchthonis a Camerario, Zwinglii a Myconio, Calvini a
   Beza, prefaced by Neander, Berlin, 1841. Justus Jonas gives an account
   of Luther's last sickness and death as an eye-witness, 1546. Mathesius
   (Luther's pupil and friend, d. 1561) preached seventeen sermons on
   Luther's life, first published 1565, and very often since, though
   mostly abridged, e.g., an illustrated popular ed. with preface by G. H.
   v. Schubert, Stuttgart, 1846; jubilee edition, St. Louis and Dresden,
   1883. Joh. Cochlaeus, a Roman Cath. antagonist of Luther, wrote
   Commentaria de actis et scriptis Martini Lutheri Saxonis,
   chronographica, ex ordine ab anno Dom. 1517 usque ad annum 1546
   (inclusive), fideliter conscripta. Mayence, 1549 fol.

   (2) Later Biographies till 1875 (the best marked *) by

   *Walch (in his ed. of L.'s Works, vol. XXIV. pp. 3-875); Keil (4 parts
   in 1 vol., Leipz., 1764); Schröckh (Leipz., 1778); Ukert (Gotha, 2
   vols., 1817); Pfizer (Stuttgart, 1836); Stang (with illustrations,
   Stuttg., 1836); Jaekel (Leipz., 1841, new ed. Elberfeld, 1871); *Meurer
   (Dresden, 1843-'46, 3 vols. with illustrations, abridged in 1 vol.,
   1850, 3d ed., 1870, mostly in Luther's own words); *Juergens (Leipz.,
   1846-'47, 3 vols., reaching to 1517, very thorough, but unfinished); J.
   M. Audin (Rom. Cath., Hist. de la vie, des ouvrages et des doctrines de
   M. Luth., Paris, 1839, 7th ed., revue et corrigée, 1856, 3 vols.--a
   storehouse of calumnies, also in German and English); [110] * M.
   Michelet (Mémoirs de L., écrits par lui-mème, traduits et mis en ordre,
   Paris, 1835, also Brussels, 1845, 2 vols.; the best biography in
   French; Eng. transl. by Hazlitt, London, 1846, and by G. H. Smith,
   London and N. Y., 1846); [111] Ledderhose (Karlsruh, 3d ed., 1883;
   French transl. of the first ed., Strassburg, 1837); Genthe (Leipz.,
   1842, with seventeen steel engravings); Westermann (Halle, 1845);
   Weydmann (Luther, ein Charakter--und Spiegelbild für unsere Zeit,
   Hamburg, 1850); B. Sears (English, publ. by the Am. Sunday School
   Union, Philada., 1850, with special reference to the youth of L.); Jgn.
   Döllinger (R. C., Luther, eine Skizze, Freiburg i. B., 1851); König and
   Gelzer (with 48 fine illustrations, Hamb. u. Gotha, 1851; Engl. ed.
   with transl. of the text by Archdeacon Hare and Cath. Winkworth, Lond.
   and N. Y., 1856); * Jul. Hare (Vindication of Luther against his
   English Assailants, first publ. as a note in his The Mission of the
   Comforter, London, 1846, vol. II., 656-878, then separately, 2d ed.,
   1855, the best English appreciation of L.); II. Woersley (Life of
   Luther, London, 1856, 2 vols.); Wildenhahn (Leipz., 1861); Müller
   (Nürnberg, 1867); Henke (Luther u. Melanchthon, Marburg, 1867); H. W.
   J. Thiersch (Luther, Gustav Adolf und Maximilian I. von Bayern,
   Nördlingen, 1869, pp. 3-66); Vilmar (Luther, Melanchthon und Zwingli,
   Frankf. a. M., 1869); H. Lang (Berlin, 1870, rationalistic); Ackermann
   (Jena, 1871); Gasparin (Luther et la réforme ait XVe . siècle, Paris,
   1873); Schaff (a sketch in Appleton's "Cyclopaedia," 1858, revised
   1874); Rietschel (Martin Luther und Ignatius Loyola, Wittenberg, 1879).

   (3) Recent Biographies, published since 1875, by

   Jul. Koestlin (Elberfeld, 1875, 2 vols., 2d ed. revised 1883; 3d ed.
   unchanged; upon the whole the best German biography; also an abridged
   ed. for popular use with 64 illustrations, 3d ed., 1883. English
   transl. of the small ed. by an anonymous writer with the author's
   sanction, Lond. and N. Y., 1883; another by Morris, Philad., 1883;
   comp. also Koestlin's art. Luther in Herzog, 2d ed., vol. IX.; his
   Festschrift, 1883, in several edd., transl. by Eliz. P. Weir: Martin
   Luther the Reformer, London, 1883; and his polemic tract: Luther und
   Janssen, der Deutsche Reformator und ein ultramontaner Historiker,
   Halle, 3d ed., 1883); V. Hasak (R. Cath., Regensb., 1881); Rein
   (Leipz., 1883, English transl. by Behringer, N. Y., 1883); Rogge,
   (Leipz., 1883); *Plitt and Petersen (Leipzig, 1883); *MAx Lenz (2nd ed.
   Berlin, 1883); P. Kuhn (Luther, sa vie et son oeuvre, Paris, 3 vols.);
   C. Burk (4th ed., Stuttg., 1884); *Th. Kolde (M. Luther, Gotha, 1884, 2
   vols.); J. A. Froude (Luther, a Short Biography, Lond. and N. Y.,
   1883); John Rae (M. Luth.: Lond., 1884); Paul Martin, i.e., M. Rade of
   Schönbach (Dr. M. Luther's Leben, etc., Neusalza, 1885-87, 3 vols.);
   Peter Bayne (M. Luth.: his Life and Times, Lond. and N. Y., 1887, 2
   vols.).

   On Luther's wife and his domestic life: W. Beste: Die Gesch.
   Catherina's von Bora. Halle, 1843 (131 pp.). G. Hofmann: Katharina von
   Bora, oder M. L. als Gatte, und Vater. Leipzig, 1846. John G. Morris:
   Life of Cath. von Bora, Baltimore, 1856. Mor. Meurer: Katherina Luther
   geborne von Bora. Dresden, 1854; 2d ed., Leipzig, 1873.

   III. Luther's Theology .

   W. Beste: Dr. M. Luther's Glaubenslehre. Halle, 1845 (286 pp.).
   Theodos. Harnack (senior): L.'s Theologie, Bd I. Erlang., 1862, Bd.
   II., 1886. *Jul. Koestlin: L.'s Theologie. Stuttg., 1863, 2d ed., 1883,
   2 vols. By the same: Luther's Lehre von der Kirche, 1853, new ed.,
   Gotha, 1868. Ch. H. Weisse; Die Christologie Luthers, Leipz., 1852 (253
   pp.). Luthardt: Die Ethik Luthers, Leipz., 1867, 2d ed., 1875.
   Lommatzsch: Luther's Lehre von ethisch-relig. Standpunkt aus, Berlin,
   1879). H. C. Moenckeberg: Luther's Lehre von der Kirche. Hamburg, 1870.
   Hering: Die Mystik Luther's. Leipz., 1879. Kattenbusch: Luther's
   Stellung z. den ökumenischen Symbolen. Giessen, 1883.

   IV. Luther as Bible Translator.

   G. W. Panzer: Entwurf einer vollständigen Gesch. der deutschen
   Bibelübers. Dr. M. Luther's von 1517-1581. Nürnberg, 1783. H. Schott:
   Gesch. der teutschen Bibelübers. Dr. M. Luther's. Leipz., 1835.
   Bindseil: Verzeichniss der Original-Ausgaben der Luther. Uebersetzung
   der Bibel. Halle, 1841. Moenckeberg and Frommann: Vorschläge zur
   Revision von M. L.'s Bibelübers. Halle, 1861-62. Theod. Schott: Martin
   Luther und die deutsche Bibel. Stuttgart, 1883. E. Riehm (Prof. in
   Halle and one of the Revisers of the Luther-Bible): Luther als
   Bibelübersetzer. Gotta. 1884. Comp. the Probebibel of 1883 (an official
   revision of Luther's version), and the numerous pamphlets for and
   against it.

   V. Luther as a Preacher.

   E. Jonas: Die Kanzelberedtsamkeit Luther's. Berlin, 1852 (515 pp.).
   Best ed. of his sermons by G. Schlosser: Dr. Martin Luther's
   Evangelien-Predigten auf alle Sonn-und Festtage des Kirchenjahres aus
   seiner Haus-und Kirchenpostille, Frankfurt a. M., 1883; 4th ed., 1885.

   VI. Luther as Poet and Musician .

   A. J. Rambach: Luther's Verdienst um den Kirchengesang. Hamburg, 1813
   Aug. Gebauer: Martin Luther und seine Zeitgenossen als
   Kirchenliederdichter. Leipzig, 1828 (212 pp.). C. von Winterfeld: Dr.
   M. Luth. deutsche geistliche Lieder nebst den wahrend seines Lebens
   dazu gebräuchlichen Stimmweisen. Leipzig, 1840 (132 pp., 4to). B. Pick:
   Luther as a Hymnist, Philad., 1875; Ein feste Burg (in 21 languages),
   Chicago, 1883. Bacon and Allen: The Hymns of Martin Luther with his
   original Tunes. Germ. and Eng., N. Y., 1883. Dr. Danneil: Luther's
   Geistliche Lieder nach seinen drei Gesangbüchern von 1524, 1529, 1545.
   Frankfurt a. M., 1883. E. Achelis: Die Entstehungszeit v. Luther's
   geistl. Liedern. Marburg, 1884.

   VII. Special Points in Luther's Life and Work.

   John G. Morris: Quaint Sayings and Doings concerning Luther.
   Philadelphia, 1857. Tuzschmann: Luther in Worms. Darmstadt, 1860.
   Koehler: Luther's Reisen. Eisenach, 1872. W. J. Mann and C. P. Krauth:
   The Great Reformation and the Ninety-five Theses. Philad., 1873.
   Zitzlaff. L. auf der Koburg. Wittenberg, 1882. Kolde. L. auf dem
   Reichstag zu Worms. Halle, 1883. Glock: Grundriss der Pädagogik
   Luther's. Karlsruh, 1883.

   VIII. Commemorative Addresses of 1883 and 1884.

   Festschriften zur 400 jährigen Jubelfeier der Geburt Dr. Martin
   Luther's, herausgegeben vom königl. Prediger-Seminar in Wittenberg.
   Wittenberg, 1883. (Addresses by Drs. Schmieder, Rietschel, and others.)
   P. Kleinert: L. im Verhältniss zur Wissenschaft (Academic oration).
   Berlin, 1883 (35 pp.). Ed. Reuss: Akad. Festrede zur Lutherfeier.
   Strassburg, 1883. Th. Brieger: Neue Mittheilungen über Luther in Worms.
   Marburg, 1883, and Luther und sein Werk. Marb., 1883. Ad. Harnack: M.
   Luther in seiner Bedeutung für die Gesch. der Wissenschaft und der
   Bildung. Giessen, 1883 (30 pp.). Vid Upsala Universitets Luthersfest,
   den 10 Nov., 1883, with an oration of K. H. Gez. von Scheele (Prof. of
   Theol. at Upsala, appointed Bishop of Visby in Gothland, 1885). Upsala,
   1883. G. N. Bonwetsch: Unser Reformator Martin Luther. Dorpat, 1883.
   Appenzeller, Ruetschi, Oettli, and others: Die Lutherfeier in Bern.
   Bern, 1883. Prof. Salmond (of Aberdeen): Martin Luther. Edinburgh,
   1883. J. M. Lindsay: M. Luther, in the 9th ed. of "Encyclop. Brit.,"
   vol. XV. (1883), 71-84. Jean Monod: Luther j'usqu'en 1520. Montauban,
   1883. J. B. Bittinger: M. Luth. Cleveland, 1883. E. J. Wolf, and
   others: Addresses on the Reformation. Gettysburg, 1884. The Luther
   Document (No. XVII.) of the American Evang. Alliance, with addresses of
   Rev. Drs. Wm. M. Taylor and Phillips Brooks. N. Y., 1883. Symposiac on
   Luther, seven addresses of the seven Professors of the Union Theol.
   Seminary in New York, held Nov. 19, 1883. Jos. A. Seiss: Luther and the
   Reformation (an eloquent commemorative oration delivered in Philad.,
   and New York). Philad. 1884. S. M. Deutsch: Luther's These vom Jahr
   1519 über die päpstliche Gewalt. Berlin, 1884. H. Cremer: Reformation
   und Wissenschaft. Gotha, 1883

   IX. Roman Catholic Attacks .

   The Luther-celebration gave rise not only to innumerable Protestant
   glorifications, but also to many Roman Catholic defamations of Luther
   and the Reformation. The ablest works of this kind are by Janssen
   (tracts in defence of his famous History of Germany, noticed in § 15),
   G. G. Evers, formerly a Lutheran pastor (Katholisch oder
   protestantisch? Hildesheim, 4th ed., 1883; Martin Luther's Anfänge,
   Osnabrück, 3d ed., 1884; Martin Luther, Mainz, 1883 sqq., in several
   vols.), Westermayer. (Luther's Werk im Jahr 1883), Germanus, Herrmann,
   Roettscher, Dasbach, Roem, Leogast, etc. See the "Historisch-politische
   Blätter" of Munich, and the "Germania" of Berlin, for 1883 and 1884
   (the chief organs of Romanism in Germany), and the Protestant review of
   these writings by Wilh. Walther: Luther in neusten römischen Gericht.
   Halle, 1884 (166 pages).
     __________________________________________________________________

   [110] Audin wrote also the Lives of Calvin, of Henry VIII., and of Leo
   X. (published between 1839 and 1847), with the same French vivacity and
   Roman Catholic hostility; yet, while he does not understand Luther as a
   Protestant Christian and a reformer, he tries to do justice to him as a
   man and a genius. He says (III., 380): "Luther est le grand predicateur
   de la réforme. Il eut presque tous les dons de l'orateur; une
   inèpuisable fécondité de pensées, une imagination aussi prompte à
   recevoir qu'à produire ses impressions, une abondance et une suplesse
   de style inexprimables. Sa voix était claire et retentissante, son oeil
   brillant de flamme, sa téte antique, sa poitrine large, ses mains
   d'unerare beauté, son geste ample et rich .... C'était à la fois
   Rabelais et Montaigne: Rabelais avec sa verve drolatique de style,
   Montaigne avec ses tournures qui burinent et cisètent." The editor of
   the 7th ed., in his introductory notice (p. xviii.), says that those
   biographies of Audin have given to the Reformation "le coup de grace,"
   and thus finished the work of Bossuet's Variations; but Protestantism
   still lives, even in Catholic and infidel France.

   [111] Michelet lets Luther tell his own story as far as possible, and
   compares this story with the Confessions of Augustin and of Rousseau,
   which it unites."Dans saint Augustin" (he says, I., 6), "la passion, la
   nature, l'individuaté humaine, n'apparaissent que pour étre immolees à
   la grâce divine. C'est l'histoire d'une crise de l'ame, d'une
   renaissance, d'une Vita nuova; le saint eût rouqi de nous faire mieux
   connaître l'autre vie qu'il avait quitté. Dans Rousseau, c'est tous le
   contraire; il ne s'agit plus de la grace; la nature règne sans partage,
   elle triomphe, elle s'étale; cela va quelquefois jusqu 'au dégout.
   Luther a présenté, non pas l'equilibré de la grâce et de la nature,
   mais leur plus douloureux combat. Les luttes de la sensibilité, les
   tentations plus hautes du donte, bien d'autres hommes en eut suffert;
   Pascal les eut évidemment, il les étouffa et il en mourat. Luther n'a
   rien caché, il ne s'est pu contenir. Il a donné à voir en lui à sonder,
   la plaie profonde de notre nature. C'est le seul homme peut-âtre où
   l'on puisse étudier à plaisircette terrible anatomie."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 18. Luther's Youth and Training.

   In order to understand the genius and history of the German Reformation
   we must trace its origin in the personal experience of the monk who
   shook the world from his lonely study in Wittenberg, and made pope and
   emperor tremble at the power of his word.

   All the Reformers, like the Apostles and Evangelists, were men of
   humble origin, and gave proof that God's Spirit working through his
   chosen instruments is mightier than armies and navies. But they were
   endowed with extraordinary talents and energy, and providentially
   prepared for their work. They were also aided by a combination of
   favorable circumstances without which they could not have accomplished
   their work. They made the Reformation, and the Reformation made them.

   Of all the Reformers Luther is the first. He is so closely identified
   with the German Reformation that the one would have no meaning without
   the other. His own history is the formative history of the church which
   is justly called by his name, and which is the incarnation and
   perpetuation of his genius. No other Reformer has given his name to the
   church he reformed, and exercised the same controlling influence over
   its history. We need not discuss here the advantages and disadvantages
   of this characteristic difference; we are only concerned with the fact.

   Martin Luther was born Nov. 10, 1483, an hour before midnight, at
   Eisleben in Prussian Saxony, where he died, Feb. 18, 1546. [112]

   On the day following he was baptized and received the name of the saint
   of the day.

   His parents had recently removed to that town [113] from their original
   home at Mahra near Eisenach in Thuringia, where Boniface had first
   preached the gospel to the Germans. Six months after Luther's birth
   they settled at Mansfeld, the capital of a rich mining district in the
   Harz mountains, which thus shares with the Thuringian forest the honor
   of being the home of the Luther family. They were very poor, but
   honest, industrious and pious people from the lower and uncultivated
   ranks.

   Luther was never ashamed of his humble, rustic origin. "I am," he said
   with pride to Melanchthon, "a peasant's son; my father, grandfather,
   all my ancestors were genuine peasants." [114] His mother had to carry
   the wood from the forest, on her back, and father and mother, as he
   said, "worked their flesh off their bones," to bring up seven children
   (he had three younger brothers and three sisters). Afterward his
   father, as a miner, acquired some property, and left at his death 1250
   guilders, a guilder being worth at that time about sixteen marks, or
   four dollars. [115]

   Luther had a hard youth, without sunny memories, and was brought up
   under stern discipline. His mother chastised him, for stealing a paltry
   nut, till the blood came; and his father once flogged him so severely
   that he fled away and bore him a temporary grudge; [116] but Luther
   recognized their good intentions, and cherished filial affection,
   although they knew not, as he said, to distinguish the ingenia to which
   education should be adapted. He was taught at home to pray to God and
   the saints, to revere the church and the priests, and was told
   frightful stories about the devil and witches which haunted his
   imagination all his life.

   In the school the discipline was equally severe, and the rod took the
   place of kindly admonition. He remembered to have been chastised no
   less than fifteen times in one single morning. But he had also better
   things to say. He learned the Catechism, i.e.: the Creed, the Lord's
   Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and several Latin and German hymns.
   He treasured in his memory the proverbial wisdom of the people and the
   legendary lore of Dietrich von Bern, of Eulenspiegel and Markolf.

   He received his elementary education in the schools of Mansfeld,
   Magdeburg, and Eisenach. Already in his fourteenth year he had to
   support himself by singing in the street.

   Frau Ursula Cotta, the wife of the wealthiest merchant at Eisenach,
   immortalized herself by the benevolent interest she took in the poor
   student. She invited him to her table "on account of his hearty singing
   and praying," and gave him the first impression of a lady of some
   education and refinement. She died, 1511, but he kept up an
   acquaintance with her sons and entertained one of them who studied at
   Wittenberg. From her he learned the word: "There is nothing dearer in
   this world than the love of woman." [117]

   The hardships of Luther's youth and the want of refined breeding show
   their effects in his writings and actions. They limited his influence
   among the higher and cultivated classes, but increased his power over
   the middle and lower classes. He was a man of the people and for the
   people. He was of the earth earthy, but with his bold face lifted to
   heaven. He was not a polished diamond, but a rough block cut out from a
   granite mountain and well fitted for a solid base of a mighty
   structure. He laid the foundation, and others finished the upper
   stories.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [112] His name is differently spelled: Luder, Ludher, Lutter, Luttherr,
   Luther. The Reformer himself varied. In his first book, on the
   Penitential Psalms, 1517, he signed his name after the preface Martinus
   Luder, but soon afterward he adopted the spelling Luther. In the
   University records of Erfurt he was inscribed as Ludher in the
   Wittenberg records, first as Luder and Lüder. He derived his name from
   lauter, clear, afterward from Lothar, which means laut (hlut),
   renowned, according to others Leutherr, i.e.: Herr der Leute, lord of
   the people. See Erfurter Matrikel; Album Acad. Viteberg., and Lib.
   Decanorum facultatis theol. Acad. Viteb. ed. Förstemann; Walch, L.'s
   Werke I., 46 sqq.; Jürgens I., 11-13: Knaake, in "Zeitschr, f. hist.
   Theol.," 1872, p. 465; Köstlin, Mart. Luther, I. 21 (2d ed. 1883). The
   year of Luther's birth rests on the testimony of his brother James; his
   mother distinctly remembered the day and the hour, but not the year.
   Melanchthon's Vita Luth. 2; Köstlin, 1. 25 and 776.

   [113] The story that they went to the fair at Eisenach cannot be
   proven.

   [114] "Ich bin eines Bauern Sohn; mein Vater, Grossvater, Ahnherr sind
   rechte Bauern gewest. Darauf ist mein Vater gen Mansfeld gezogen und
   ein Berghauer worden: daher bin ich." Mathesius wisely remarks with
   reference to the small beginnings of Luther: "Wass gross soll werden,
   muss klein angehen; und wenn die Kinder zärtlich und herrlich erzogen
   werden, schadet es ihnen ihr Leben lang."

   [115] Köstlin, I., 26; II., 498. In his small biography, pp. 6 and 7
   (Engl. ed.), Köstlin gives the pictures of Hans and Margaret Luther.
   There is a striking resemblance between Luther and his mother, whom
   Melanchthon describes as a modest, God-fearing, and devout woman. Her
   maiden name was Ziegler (not Lindemann, as usually given). Luther's
   father is said to have escaped by flight trial for murdering a peasant
   at Möhra in a fit of anger; but this tradition rests only on the
   testimony of J. Wicel (Epist. libri quatuor, Lips., 1537), who fell
   away from Protestantism. It is discredited by Köstlin (I., 24). Janssen
   (II. 66) leaves it in doubt.

   [116] Table Talk (Erl. Frkf. ed. LXI. 213): "Man soll die Kinder nicht
   zu hart staüpen; denn mein Vater stäupet mich einmal so sehr, dass ich
   ihn flohe und ward ihm gram, bis er mich wieder zu ihm gewöhnete."

   [117] He says in his Table-Talk: "Darumb sagte meine Wirthin zu
   Eisenach recht, als ich daselbst in die Schule ging: 'Es ist kein
   lieber Ding auf Erden Als Frauenlieb', wem sie mag werden.' " See
   Works, Erl. Frkf. ed. LXI., 212; Jürgens, I., 281 sqq.; Kolde, I., 36;
   Janssen, II., 67. The relation of Luther to this excellent lady has
   been made the subject of a useful religious novel by Mrs. Eliz.
   Charles, under the title: Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. By
   two of themselves. London and New York (M. W. Dodd), 1864. The diary is
   fictitious.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 19. Luther in the University of Erfurt.

   At the age of eighteen, in the year 1501, he entered, as "Martinus
   Ludher ex Mansfeld," the University of Erfurt, which had been founded a
   hundred years before (1392) and was then one of the best in Germany.
   [118] By that time his father was able to assist him so that he was
   free of care and could acquire a little library.

   He studied chiefly scholastic philosophy, namely: logic, rhetoric,
   physics and metaphysics. His favorite teacher was Truttvetter, called
   "Doctor Erfordiensis." [119] The palmy days of scholasticism which
   reared those venerable cathedrals of thought in support of the
   traditional faith of the church in the thirteenth century, had passed
   away, and were succeeded by the times of barren disputes about Realism
   and Nominalism or the question whether the general ideas (the
   universalia) had an objective reality, or a merely nominal, subjective
   existence in the mind. Nominalism was then the prevailing system.

   On the other hand the humanistic studies were reviving all over Europe
   and opened a new avenue of intellectual culture and free thought. The
   first Greek book in Greek letters (a grammar) which was published in
   Germany, appeared in Erfurt. John Crotus Rubeanus (Jäger) who studied
   there since 1498 and became rector of the University in 1520 and 1521,
   was one of the leaders of humanism and the principal author of the
   first part of the famous anti-monkish Epistolae obscurorum virorum
   (1515); he was at first an intimate friend of Hutten and Luther, and
   greeted the latter on his way to Worms (1521) as the man who "first
   after so many centuries dared to strangle the Roman license with the
   sword of the Scripture," but afterward he fell away from the
   Reformation (1531) and assailed it bitterly. [120]

   Luther did not neglect the study of the ancient classics, especially
   Cicero, Vergil, Plautus, and Livy. [121] He acquired sufficient mastery
   of Latin to write it with clearness and vigor, though not with elegance
   and refinement. The knowledge of Greek he acquired afterward as
   professor at Wittenberg. In classical culture he never attained the
   height of Erasmus and Melanchthon, of Calvin and Beza; but in original
   thought and in the mastery of his own mother tongue he was unrivalled.
   He always regarded the languages as the sheath for the sword of the
   Spirit.

   Beside his literary studies he cultivated his early love for music. He
   sang, and played the lute right merrily. He was a poet and musician as
   well as a theologian. He prized music as a noble gift of God, as a
   remedy against sadness and evil thoughts, and an effective weapon
   against the assaults of the devil. His poetic gift shines in his
   classical hymns. He had a rich font of mother wit and quaint humor.

   His moral conduct was unblemished; and the mouth of slander did not
   dare to blacken his reputation till after the theological passions were
   roused by the Reformation. He went regularly to mass and observed the
   daily devotions of a sincere Catholic. He chose for his motto: to pray
   well is half the study. He was a devout worshipper of the Virgin Mary.

   In his twentieth year he first saw a complete (Latin) Bible in the
   University Library, and was surprised and rejoiced to find that it
   contained so much more than was ever read or explained in the churches.
   [122] His eye fell upon the story of Samuel and his mother, and he read
   it with delight. But he did not begin a systematic study of the Bible
   till he entered the convent; nor did he find in it the God of love and
   mercy, but rather the God of righteousness and wrath. He was much
   concerned about his personal salvation and given to gloomy reflections
   over his sinful condition. Once he fell dangerously ill, and was seized
   with a fit of despair, but an old priest comforted him, saying: "My
   dear Baccalaureus, be of good cheer; you will not die in this sickness:
   God will yet make a great man out of you for the comfort of many."

   In 1502 he was graduated as Bachelor of Arts, in 1505 as Master of
   Arts. This degree, which corresponds to the modern Doctor of Philosophy
   in Germany, was bestowed with great solemnity. "What a moment of
   majesty and splendor," says Luther, "was that when one took the degree
   of Master, and torches were carried before him. I consider that no
   temporal or worldly joy can equal it." His talents and attainments were
   the wonder of the University.

   According to his father's ambitious wish, Luther began to prepare
   himself for the profession of law, and was presented by him with a copy
   of the Corpus juris. But he inclined to theology, when a remarkable
   providential occurrence opened a new path for his life.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [118] See the description by Jürgens, I., 351 sqq.; and Kampschulte,
   Die Universität Erfurt in ihrem Verh. z. Humanismus u. Reformation,
   Trier, 1358. Two parts. The university was abolished in 1816.

   [119] See Kampschulte, l.c. I., 43 sqq., and G. Plitt, Jodocus
   Truttvetter, der Lehrer Luthers, 1876.

   [120] Jürgens, I., 449; Kampschulte, De Johanne Croto Rubiano, 1862.

   [121] O. G. Schmidt, Luther's Bekanntschaft mit den alten Classikern,
   1883.

   [122] Da ich zwanzig Jahre alt war, hatte ich noch keine Bibel gesehen;
   ich meinte, es wären keim Evangelien und Episteln mehr, denn die in den
   Postillen sind." Werke, Erl. ed., LX., 255. This was partly his own
   fault, for several editions of the Latin Vulgate and the German Bible
   were printed before 1500.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 20. Luther's Conversion.

   In the summer of 1505 Luther entered the Augustinian convent at Erfurt
   and became a monk, as he thought, for his life time. The circumstances
   which led to this sudden step we gather from his fragmentary utterances
   which have been embellished by legendary tradition.

   He was shocked by the sudden death of a friend (afterward called
   Alexius), who was either killed in a duel, [123] or struck dead by
   lightning at Luther's side. Shortly afterward, on the second of July,
   1505, two weeks before his momentous decision, he was overtaken by a
   violent thunderstorm near Erfurt, on his return from a visit to his
   parents, and was so frightened that he fell to the earth and
   tremblingly exclaimed: "Help, beloved Saint Anna! I will become a
   monk." His friend Crotus (who afterward became an enemy of the
   Reformation) inaptly compared this event to the conversion of St. Paul
   at the gates of Damascus. [124] But Luther was a Christian before he
   became a monk.

   On the sixteenth of July he assembled his friends who in vain tried to
   change his resolution, indulged once more in social song, and bade them
   farewell. On the next day they accompanied him, with tears, to the
   gates of the convent. The only books he took with him were the Latin
   poets Vergil and Plautus.

   His father almost went mad, when he heard the news. Luther himself
   declared in later years, that his monastic vow was forced from him by
   terror and the fear of death and the judgment to come; yet he never
   doubted that God's hand was in it. "I never thought of leaving the
   convent: I was entirely dead to the world, until God thought that the
   time had come."

   This great change has nothing to do with Luther's Protestantism. It was
   simply a transition from secular to religious life--such as St. Bernard
   and thousands of Catholic monks before and since passed through. He was
   never an infidel, nor a wicked man, but a pious Catholic from early
   youth; but he now became overwhelmed with a sense of the vanity of this
   world and the absorbing importance of saving his soul, which, according
   to the prevailing notion of his age, he could best secure in the quiet
   retreat of a cloister.

   He afterward underwent as it were a second conversion, from the
   monastic and legalistic piety of mediaeval Catholicism to the free
   evangelical piety of Protestantism, when he awoke to an experimental
   knowledge of justification by free grace through faith alone.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [123] Mathesius: "da ihm ein guter Gesell erstochen ward."

   [124] In a letter which Crotus wrote to Luther from Bologna, Nov.,
   1519: "Perge, ut coepisti, relinque exemplum posteris. Nam ista facis
   non sine numine divum. Ad haec respexit divina providentia, cum te
   redeuntem a parentibus coeleste fulmen veluti alterum Paulum ante
   oppidum Erfurdianum in terram prostravit, atque inter Augustiana septa
   compulit e nostro consortio." Döllinger I. 139.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 21. Luther as a Monk.

   The Augustinian convent at Erfurt became the cradle of the Lutheran
   Reformation. All honor to monasticism: it was, like the law of Israel,
   a wholesome school of discipline and a preparation for gospel freedom.
   Erasmus spent five years reluctantly in a convent, and after his
   release ridiculed monkery with the weapons of irony and sarcasm; Luther
   was a monk from choice and conviction, and therefore all the better
   qualified to refute it afterward from deep experience. He followed in
   the steps of St. Paul, who from a Pharisee of the Pharisees became the
   strongest opponent of Jewish legalism.

   If there ever was a sincere, earnest, conscientious monk, it was Martin
   Luther. His sole motive was concern for his salvation. To this supreme
   object he sacrificed the fairest prospects of life. He was dead to the
   world and was willing to be buried out of the sight of men that he
   might win eternal life. His latter opponents who knew him in convent,
   have no charge to bring against his moral character except a certain
   pride and combativeness, and he himself complained of his temptations
   to anger and envy. [125]

   It was not without significance that the order which he joined, bore
   the honored name of the greatest Latin father who, next to St. Paul,
   was to be Luther's chief teacher of theology and religion; but it is an
   error to suppose that this order represented the anti-Pelagian or
   evangelical views of the North African father; on the contrary it was
   intensely catholic in doctrine, and given to excessive worship of the
   Virgin Mary, and obedience to the papal see which conferred upon it
   many special privileges.

   St. Augustin, after his conversion, spent several weeks with some
   friends in quiet seclusion on a country-seat near Tagaste, and after
   his election to the priesthood, at Hippo in 391, he established in a
   garden a sort of convent where with like-minded brethren and students
   he led an ascetic life of prayer, meditation and earnest, study of the
   Scriptures, yet engaged at the same time in all the public duties of a
   preacher, pastor and leader in the theological controversies and
   ecclesiastical affairs of his age.

   His example served as an inspiration and furnished a sort of authority
   to several monastic associations which arose in the thirteenth century.
   Pope Alexander IV. (1256) gave them the so-called rule of St. Augustin.
   They belonged to the mendicant monks, like the Dominicans, Franciscans
   and Carmelites. They laid great stress on preaching. In other respects
   they differed little from other monastic orders. In the beginning of
   the sixteenth century they numbered more than a hundred settlements in
   Germany.

   The Augustinian congregation in Saxony was founded in 1493, and
   presided over since 1503 by John von Staupitz, the Vicar-General for
   Germany, and Luther's friend. The convent at Erfurt was the largest and
   most important next to that at Nürnberg. The monks were respected for
   their zeal in preaching, pastoral care, and theological study. They
   lived on alms, which they collected themselves in the town and
   surrounding country. Applicants were received as novices for a year of
   probation, during which they could reconsider their resolution;
   afterward they were bound by perpetual vows of celibacy, poverty and
   obedience to their superiors.

   Luther was welcomed by his brethren with hymns of joy and prayer. He
   was clothed with a white woollen shirt, in honor of the pure Virgin, a
   black cowl and frock, tied by a leathern girdle. He assumed the most
   menial offices to subdue his pride: he swept the floor, begged bread
   through the streets, and submitted without a murmur to the ascetic
   severities. He said twenty-five Paternosters with the Ave Maria in each
   of the seven appointed hours of prayer. He was devoted to the Holy
   Virgin and even believed, with the Augustinians and Franciscans, in her
   immaculate conception, or freedom from hereditary sin--a doctrine
   denied by the Dominicans and not made an article of faith till the year
   1854. He regularly confessed his sins to the priest at least once a
   week. At the same time a complete copy of the Latin Bible was put into
   his hands for study, as was enjoined by the new code of statutes drawn
   up by Staupitz.

   At the end of the year of probation Luther solemnly promised to live
   until death in poverty and chastity according to the rules of the holy
   father Augustin, to render obedience to Almighty God, to the Virgin
   Mary, and to the prior of the monastery. He was sprinkled with holy
   water, as he lay prostrate on the ground in the form of a cross. He was
   greeted as an innocent child fresh from baptism, and assigned to a
   separate cell with table, bedstead, and chair. [126]

   The two years which followed, he divided between pious exercises and
   theological studies. He read diligently the Scriptures, and the later
   schoolmen,--especially Gabriel Biel, whom he knew by heart, and William
   Occam, whom he esteemed on account of his subtle acuteness even above
   St. Thomas and Duns Scotus, without being affected by his sceptical
   tendency. He acknowledged the authority of Aristotle, whom he afterward
   denounced and disowned as "a damned heathen." [127] He excited the
   admiration of his brethren by his ability in disputation on scholastic
   questions.

   His heart was not satisfied with brain work. His chief concern was to
   become a saint and to earn a place in heaven. "If ever," he said
   afterward, "a monk got to heaven by monkery, I would have gotten
   there." He observed the minutest details of discipline. No one
   surpassed him in prayer, fasting, night watches, self-mortification. He
   was already held up as a model of sanctity.

   But he was sadly disappointed in his hope to escape sin and temptation
   behind the walls of the cloister. He found no peace and rest in all his
   pious exercises. The more he seemed to advance externally, the more he
   felt the burden of sin within. He had to contend with temptations of
   anger, envy, hatred and pride. He saw sin everywhere, even in the
   smallest trifles. The Scriptures impressed upon him the terrors of
   divine justice. He could not trust in God as a reconciled Father, as a
   God of love and mercy but trembled before him, as a God of wrath, as a
   consuming fire. He could not get over the words: "I, the Lord thy God,
   am a jealous God." His confessor once told him: "Thou art a fool, God
   is not angry with thee, but thou art angry with God." He remembered
   this afterward as "a great and glorious word," but at that time it made
   no impression on him. He could not point to any particular
   transgression; it was sin as an all-pervading power and vitiating
   principle, sin as a corruption of nature, sin as a state of alienation
   from God and hostility to God, that weighed on his mind like an incubus
   and brought him at times to the brink of despair.

   He passed through that conflict between the law of God and the law of
   sin which is described by Paul (Rom. vii.), and which; ends with the
   cry: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of
   this death?" He had not yet learned to add: "I thank God through Jesus
   Christ our Lord. There is now no condemnation to them that are in
   Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me
   free from the law of sin and of death."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [125] Köstlin, I., 88 sq., 780.

   [126] The cell and furniture were destroyed by fire, March 7, 1872. The
   cell was reconstructed, and the convent is now an orphan-asylum
   (Martinsstift).

   [127] "Der vermaladeite Heide Aristoteles." Luther's attitude to
   scholasticism and the great Greek philosopher changed again when, in
   support of the eucharistic presence, he had to resort to the scholastic
   distinctions between various kinds of presence. Comp. Fr. Aug. Berthold
   Nitzsch, Luther und Aristoteles . Kiel, 1883.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 22. Luther and Staupitz.

   The mystic writings of Staupitz have been republished in part by Knaake
   in Johannis Staupitii Opera. Potsdam, 1867, vol. I. His "Nachfolge
   Christi" was first published in 1515; his book "Von der Liebe Gottes"
   (especially esteemed by Luther) in 1518, and passed through several
   editions; republ. by Liesching, Stuttgart, 1862. His last work "Von,
   dem heiligen rechten christlichen Glauben," appeared after his death,
   1525, and is directed against Luther's doctrine of justification by
   faith without works. His twenty-four letters have been published by
   Kolde: Die Deutsche Augustiner Congregation und Johann von Staupitz.
   Gotha, 1879, p. 435 sqq.

   II. On Luther and Staupitz: Grimm: De Joh. Staupitio ejusque in sacr.
   instaur. meritis, in Illgen's "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol.," 1837
   (VII, 74-79). Ullmann: Die Reformatoren vor der Reformation, vol. II.,
   256-284 (very good, see there the older literature). Döllinger: Die
   Reformation, I., 153-155. Kahnis: Deutsche Reformat., I., 150 sqq.
   Albr. Ritschl: Die Lehre v. der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung, 2d ed.,
   I., 124-129 (on Staupitz's theology). Mallet: in Herzog,2 XIV.,
   648-653. Paul Zeller: Staupitz. Seine relig. dogmat. Anschauungen und
   dogmengesch. Stellung, in the "Theol. Studien und Kritiken," 1879.
   Ludwig Keller: Johann von Staupitz, und das Waldenserthum, in the
   "Historische Taschenbuch," ed. by W. Maurenbrecher, Leipzig, 1885, p.
   117-167; also his Johann von Staupitz und die Anfänge der Reformation,
   Leipzig, 1888. Dr. Keller connects Staupitz with the Waldenses and
   Anabaptists, but without proof. Kolde: Joh. von Staup. ein Waldenser
   und Wiedertäufer, in Brieger's "Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch." Gotha,
   1885, p. 426-447. Dieckhoff: Die Theol. des Joh. v. Staup., Leipz.,
   1887.

   In this state of mental and moral agony, Luther was comforted by an old
   monk of the convent (the teacher of the novices) who reminded him of
   the article on the forgiveness of sins in the Apostles' Creed, of
   Paul's word that the sinner is justified by grace through faith, and of
   an incidental remark of St. Bernard (in a Sermon on the Canticles) to
   the same effect.

   His best friend and wisest counsellor was Johann von Staupitz, Doctor
   of Divinity and Vicar-General of the Augustinian convents in Germany.
   Staupitz was a Saxon nobleman, of fine mind, generous heart,
   considerable biblical and scholastic learning, and deep piety, highly
   esteemed wherever known, and used in important missions by the Elector
   Frederick of Saxony. He belonged to the school of practical mysticism
   or Catholic pietism, which is best represented by Tauler and Thomas a
   Kempis. He cared more for the inner spiritual life than outward forms
   and observances, and trusted in the merits of Christ rather than in
   good works of his own, as the solid ground of comfort and peace. The
   love of God and the imitation of Christ were the ruling ideas of his
   theology and piety. In his most popular book, On the Love of God, [128]
   he describes that love as the inmost being of God, which makes
   everything lovely, and should make us love Him above all things; but
   this love man cannot learn from man, nor from the law which only brings
   us to a knowledge of sin, nor from the letter of the Scripture which
   kills, but from the Holy Spirit who reveals God's love in Christ to our
   hearts and fills it with the holy flame of gratitude and consecration.
   "The law," he says in substance, "makes known the disease, but cannot
   heal. But the spirit is hid beneath the letter; the old law is pregnant
   with Christ who gives us grace to love God above all things. To those
   who find the spirit and are led to Christ by the law, the Scriptures
   become a source of edification and comfort. The Jews saw and heard and
   handled Christ, but they had him not in their heart, and therefore they
   were doubly guilty. And so are those who carry Christ only on their
   lips. The chief thing is to have him in our heart. The knowledge of the
   Christian faith and the love to God are gifts of pure grace beyond our
   art and ability, and beyond our works and merits."

   Staupitz was Luther's spiritual father, and "first caused the light of
   the gospel to shine in the darkness of his heart." [129] He directed
   him from his sins to the merits of Christ, from the law to the cross,
   from works to faith, from scholasticism to the study of the Scriptures,
   of St. Augustin, and Tauler. He taught him that true repentance
   consists not in self-imposed penances and punishments, but in a change
   of heart and must proceed from the contemplation of Christ's sacrifice,
   in which the secret of God's eternal will was revealed. He also
   prophetically assured him that God would overrule these trials and
   temptations for his future usefulness in the church. [130]

   He encouraged Luther to enter the priesthood (1507), and brought him to
   Wittenberg; he induced him to take the degree of Doctor of Divinity,
   and to preach. He stirred him up against popery, [131] and protected
   him in the transactions with Cardinal Cajetan. He was greeted by
   Scheurl in 1518 as the one who would lead the people of Israel out of
   captivity.

   But when Luther broke with Rome, and Rome with Luther, the friendship
   cooled down. Staupitz held fast to the unity of the Catholic Church and
   was intimidated and repelled by the excesses of the Reformation. In a
   letter of April 1, 1524, [132] he begs Luther's pardon for his long
   silence and significantly says in conclusion: "May Christ help us to
   live according to his gospel which now resounds in our ears and which
   many carry on their lips; for I see that countless persons abuse the
   gospel for the freedom of the flesh. [133] Having been the precursor of
   the holy evangelical doctrine, I trust that my entreaties may have some
   effect upon thee." The sermons which he preached at Salzburg since 1522
   breathe the same spirit and urge Catholic orthodoxy and obedience.
   [134] His last book, published after his death (1525) under the title,
   "Of the holy true Christian Faith," is a virtual protest against
   Luther's doctrine of justification by faith alone and a plea for a
   practical Christianity which shows itself in good works. He contrasts
   the two doctrines in these words: "The fools say, he who believes in
   Christ., needs no works; the Truth says, whosoever will be my disciple,
   let him follow Me; and whosoever will follow Me, let him deny himself
   and carry my cross day by day; and whosoever loves Me, keeps my
   commandments .... The evil spirit suggests to carnal Christians the
   doctrine that man is justified without works, and appeals to Paul. But
   Paul only excluded works of the law which proceed from fear and
   selfishness, while in all his epistles he commends as necessary to
   salvation such works as are done in obedience to God's commandments, in
   faith and love. Christ fulfilled the taw, the fools would abolish the
   law; Paul praises the law as holy and good, the fools scold and abuse
   it as evil because they walk according to the flesh and have not the
   mind of the Spirit." [135]

   Staupitz withdrew from the conflict, resigned his position, 1520, left
   his order by papal dispensation, became abbot of the Benedictine
   Convent of St. Peter in Salzburg and died Dec. 28, 1524) in the bosom
   of the Catholic church which he never intended to leave. [136] He was
   evangelical, without being a Protestant. [137] He cared little for
   Romanism, less for Lutheranism, all for practical Christianity. His
   relation to the Reformation resembles that of Erasmus with this
   difference, that he helped to prepare the way for it in the sphere of
   discipline and piety, Erasmus in the sphere of scholarship and
   illumination. Both were men of mediation and transition; they beheld
   from afar the land of promise, but did not enter it.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [128] It passed through three editions between 1518 and 1520. See
   Knaake, I., 86 sq. Keller says that it was often republished by the
   Anabaptists, whom he regards as the successors of the mediaeval
   Waldenses, or "Brethren."

   [129] "Per quem primum coepit Evangelii lux de tenebris splendescere in
   cordibus nostris." So Luther says in his letter to Staupitz, Sept. 17,
   1518 (DeWette II., 408 sq.), where he addresses him as "reverendus in
   Christo pater," and signs himself "filius tuus Martinus Lutherus."

   [130] In a letter of comfort to Hieronymus Weller, Nov. 6, 1530
   (DeWette, IV., 187), Luther says, that in his sadness and distress in
   the convent he consulted Staupitz and opened to him his "horrendas et
   terrificas cogitationes," and that he was told by him: "Nescis Martine,
   quam tibi illa tenatio sit utilis et necessaria. Non enim temere te sic
   exercet Deus, videbis, quod ad res magnas gerendas te ministro utetur."

   [131] Luther: "D. Staupitius me incitabat contra papam (al. papatum)."
   In Colloquia, ed. Bindseil, III., 188.

   [132] First published by K. Krafft, in "Briefe und Documente aus der
   Zeit der Reformation," Elberfeld (1876), p. 54 sq.

   [133] "Ad liberatum carnis video innumeros abuti evangelio."

   [134] Extracts from these sermons were first published by Kolde.

   [135] Knaake, l.c., I., 130 sqq.; Keller, Reform., 346 sq. It must have
   been this book which Link sent to Luther in the year 1525, and which
   Luther returned with a very unfavorable judgment. Döllinger (l.c. I.,
   155) thinks that Luther looked upon the death of Staupitz as a sort of
   divine judgment, as he looked afterward upon the death of Zwingli.

   [136] Neverthless his books were put in the Index by the Council of
   Trent, 1563, and were burnt as heretical with all his correspondence by
   order of his successor, Abbot Martin of St. Peter, in the court of the
   convent at Salzburg in 1584. See Fr. Hein. Reusch (Old Cath.),Der Index
   der verbotenen Bücher, Bd. I. (Bonn, 1883), p. 279: "Staupitius ist in
   den Index gekommen, weil Cochlaeus bei dem Jahre 1517ihn neben Luther
   als Gegner Tetzels erwähnt. Er ist in der 1. Classe geblieben bis auf
   diesen Tag, obschon man in Rom oder wenigstens in Trient, jedenfalls
   Benedict XIV. wohl hätte wissen können, dass er als guter Katholik, als
   Abt von St. Peter zu Salzburg gestorben." This is only one of several
   hundred errors in this papal catalogue of heretical books.

   [137] Or, as Luther expressed it in his letter to Staupitz of Feb. 9,
   1521, he wavered between Christ and the Pope: "Ich fürcte, ihr möchtet
   zwischen Christo und dem Papste in der Mitte schwaben, die ihr doch in
   heftigem Streit sehet." He told him in the same letter that he was no
   more that preacher of grace and of the cross (ein solcher Gnaden-und
   Kreuzdiger) as formerly.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 23. The Victory of Justifying Faith.

   (Comp. § 7.)

   The secret of Luther's power and influence lies in his heroic faith. It
   delivered him from the chaos and torment of ascetic self-mortification
   and self-condemnation, gave him rest and peace, and made him a lordly
   freeman in Christ, and yet an obedient servant of Christ. This faith
   breathes through all his writings, dominated his acts, sustained him in
   his conflicts and remained his shield and anchor till the hour of
   death. This faith was born in the convent at Erfurt, called into public
   action at Wittenberg, and made him a Reformer of the Church.

   By the aid of Staupitz and the old monk, but especially by the
   continued study of Paul's Epistles, be was gradually brought to the
   conviction that the sinner is justified by faith alone, without works
   of law. He experienced this truth in his heart long before he
   understood it in all its bearings. He found in it that peace of
   conscience which he had sought in vain by his monkish exercises. He
   pondered day and night over the meaning of "the righteousness of God
   "(Rom. 1:17), and thought that it is the righteous punishment of
   sinners; but toward the close of his convent life he came to the
   conclusion that it is the righteousness which God freely gives in
   Christ to those who believe in him. Righteousness is not to be acquired
   by man through his own exertions and merits; it is complete and perfect
   in Christ, and all the sinner has to do is to accept it from Him as a
   free gift. Justification is that judicial act of God whereby he acquits
   the sinner of guilt and clothes him with the righteousness of Christ on
   the sole condition of personal faith which apprehends and appropriates
   Christ and shows its life and power by good works, as a good tree
   bringing forth good fruits. For faith in Luther's system is far more
   than a mere assent of the mind to the authority of the church: it is a
   hearty trust and full surrender of the whole man to Christ; it lives
   and moves in Christ as its element, and is constantly obeying his will
   and following his example. It is only in connection with this deeper
   conception of faith that his doctrine of justification can be
   appreciated. Disconnected from it, it is a pernicious error.

   The Pauline doctrine of justification as set forth in the Epistles to
   the Romans and Galatians, had never before been clearly and fully
   understood, not even by Augustin and Bernard, who confound
   justification with sanctification. [138] Herein lies the difference
   between the Catholic and the Protestant conception. In the Catholic
   system justification (dikaivwsi") is a gradual process conditioned by
   faith and good works; in the Protestant system it is a single act of
   God, followed by sanctification. It is based upon the merits of Christ,
   conditioned by faith, and manifested by good works. [139]

   This experience acted like a new revelation on Luther. It shed light
   upon the whole Bible and made it to him a book of life and comfort. He
   felt relieved of the terrible load of guilt by an act of free grace. He
   was led out of the dark prison house of self-inflicted penance into the
   daylight and fresh air of God's redeeming love. Justification broke the
   fetters of legalistic slavery, and filled him with the joy and peace of
   the state of adoption; it opened to him the very gates of heaven.

   Henceforth the doctrine of justification by faith alone was for him to
   the end of life the sum and substance of the gospel, the heart of
   theology, the central truth of Christianity, the article of the
   standing or falling church. By this standard he measured every other
   doctrine and the value of every book of the Bible. Hence his enthusiasm
   for Paul, and his dislike of James, whom he could not reconcile with
   his favorite apostle. He gave disproportion to solifidianism and
   presented it sometimes in most unguarded language, which seemed to
   justify antinomian conclusions; but he corrected himself, he expressly
   condemned antinomianism, and insisted on good works and a holy life as
   a necessary manifestation of faith. [140] And it must not be forgotten
   that the same charge of favoring antinomianism was made against Paul,
   who rejects it with pious horror: "Let it never be!"

   Thus the monastic and ascetic life of Luther was a preparatory school
   for his evangelical faith. It served the office of the Mosaic law
   which, by bringing the knowledge of sin and guilt, leads as a tutor to
   Christ (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 3:24). The law convicted, condemned, and killed
   him; the gospel comforted, justified, and made him alive. The law
   enslaved him, the gospel set him free. He had trembled like a slave;
   now he rejoiced as a son in his father's house. Through the discipline
   of the law he died to the law, that he might live unto God (Gal. 2:19).

   In one word, Luther passed through the experience of Paul. He
   understood him better than any mediaeval schoolman or ancient father.
   His commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians is still one of the
   best, for its sympathetic grasp of the contrast between law and gospel,
   between spiritual slavery and spiritual freedom.

   Luther held this conviction without dreaming that it conflicted with
   the traditional creed and piety of the church. He was brought to it
   step by step. The old views and practices ran along side with it, and
   for several years he continued to be a sincere and devout Catholic. It
   was only the war with Tetzel and its consequences that forced him into
   the position of a Reformer and emancipated him from his old
   connections.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [138] Luther himself felt how widely he differed in this doctrine from
   his favorite Augustin. He said afterward in his Table Talk: "Principio
   Augustinum vorabam, non legebam; aber da mir in Paulo die Thür aufging,
   dass ich wusste was justificatio fidei wär, ward es aus mit ihm."
   Köstlin, I., 780. Yet if we reduce the doctrine of justification by
   faith to the more general term of salvation by free grace, it was held
   as clearly and strongly by Augustin and, we may say, is held by all
   true Christians. Janssen (II., 71) says: "Of all the books recognized
   and used by the (Catholic) Church, whether learned or popular, there is
   not one which does not contain the doctrine of justification by Christ
   alone (die Lehre von der Rechtfertigung durch Christus allein)." But
   the question between the Roman church and Luther turned on the
   subjective appropriation of the righteousness of Christ which is the
   objective ground of justification and salvation; while faith is the
   subjective condition.

   [139] Modern exegesis has justified this view of dikaioo and dikaiosis,
   according to Hellenistic usage, although etymologically the verb may
   mean to make just, i.e., to sanctify, in accordance with verbs in oo
   (e.g. deloo phanephoo, tuphloo, (i.to make manifest, etc.). See the
   Commentaries on Romans and Galatians.

   [140] The boldest and wildest utterance of Luther on justification
   occurs in a letter to Melanchthon (De Wette's ed. II. 37), dated Aug.
   1, 1521, where he gives his opinion on the vow of celibacy and says:
   "Esto peccator et pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide (crede) et gaude in
   Christo, qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi." But it loses all its
   force as an argument against him and his doctrine, first by being
   addressed to Melanchthon, who was not likely to abuse it, and secondly
   by implying an impossibility; for the fortius crede and the concluding
   ora fortiter neutralize the fortiter pecca. Paul, of course, could
   never have written such a passage. He puts the antinomian inference:
   "Let us continue in sin that grace may abound" into the form of a
   question, and answers it by an indignant me genoito. Rom. 6:1. This is
   the difference between the wisdom of an apostle and the zeal of a
   reformer.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 24. Luther Ordained to the Priesthood.

   In the second year of his monastic life and when he was still in a
   state of perplexity, Luther was ordained to the priesthood, and on May
   2, 1507, he said his first mass. This was a great event in the life of
   a priest. He was so overwhelmed by the solemnity of offering the
   tremendous sacrifice for the living and the dead that he nearly fainted
   at the altar.

   His father had come with several friends to witness the solemnity and
   brought him a present of twenty guilders. He was not yet satisfied with
   the monastic vows. "Have you not read in Holy Writ," he said to the
   brethren at the entertainment given to the young priest, "that a man
   must honor father and mother?" And when he was reminded, that his son
   was called to the convent by a voice from heaven, he answered: "Would
   to God, it were no spirit of the devil." He was not fully reconciled to
   his son till after he had acquired fame and entered the married state.

   Luther performed the duties of the new dignity with conscientious
   fidelity. He read mass every morning, and invoked during the week
   twenty-one particular saints whom he had chosen as his helpers, three
   on each day.

   But he was soon to be called to a larger field of influence.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 25. Luther in Rome. [141]


   "Roma qua nihil possis visere majus."--(Horace.)


   "Vivere qui sancte vultis, discedite Roma.

   Omnia hic ecce licent, non licet esse probum."

   "Wer christlich leben will und Rein,

   Der zieh am Rom und bleib daheim.

   Hie mag man thun was man nur will,

   Allein fromm sein gilt hier nicht viel."

   (Old poetry quoted by Luther, in Walch, XXII., 2372.)


   "Prächtiger, als wir in unserum Norden,

   Wohnt der Bettler an der Engelspforten,
   Denn er sieht das ewig einz'ge Rom:

   Ihn umgibt der Schönheit Glanzgewimmel,

   Und ein zweiter Himmel in den Himmel
   Steigt Sancte Peter's wundersamer Dom.

   Aber Rom in allem seinem Glanze
   Ist ein Grab nur der Vergangenheit,

   Leben duftet nur die frische Pflanze,
   Die die grüne Stunde streut."--(Schiller.)

   An interesting episode in the history of Luther's training for the
   Reformation was his visit to Rome. It made a deep impression on his
   mind, and became effective, not immediately, but several years
   afterward through the recollection of what he had seen and heard, as a
   good Catholic, in the metropolis of Christendom.

   In the autumn of the year 1510, [142] after his removal to Wittenberg,
   but before his graduation as doctor of divinity, Luther was sent to
   Rome in the interest of his order and at the suggestion of Staupitz,
   who wished to bring about a disciplinary reform and closer union of the
   Augustinian convents in Germany, but met with factious opposition.

   In company with another monk and a lay brother, as the custom was, he
   traveled on foot, from convent to convent, spent four weeks in Rome in
   the Augustinian convent of Maria del popolo, and returned to Wittenberg
   in the following spring. The whole journey must have occupied several
   months. It was the longest journey he ever made, and at the same time,
   his pilgrimage to the shrines of the holy apostles where he wished to
   make a general confession of all his sins and to secure the most
   efficient absolution.

   We do not know whether he accomplished the object of his mission. [143]
   He left no information about his route, whether be passed through
   Switzerland or through the Tyrol, nor about the sublime scenery of the
   Alps and the lovely scenery of Italy. [144] The beauties of nature made
   little or no impression upon the Reformers, and were not properly
   appreciated before the close of the eighteenth century. [145] Zwingli
   and Calvin lived on the banks of Swiss lakes and in view of the Swiss
   Alps, but never allude to them; they were absorbed in theology and
   religion.

   In his later writings and Table-Talk, Luther left some interesting
   reminiscences of his journey. He spoke of the fine climate and
   fertility of Italy, the temperance of the Italians contrasted with the
   intemperate Germans, also of their shrewdness, craftiness, and of the
   pride with which they looked down upon the "stupid Germans" and "German
   beasts," as semi-barbarians; he praised the hospitals and charitable
   institutions in Florence; but he was greatly disappointed with the
   state of religion in Rome, which he found just the reverse of what he
   had expected.

   Rome was at that time filled with enthusiasm for the renaissance of
   classical literature and art, but indifferent to religion. Julius II.,
   who sat in Peter's chair from 1503 to 1513, bent his energies on the
   aggrandizement of the secular dominion of the papacy by means of an
   unscrupulous diplomacy and bloody wars, founded the Vatican Museum, and
   liberally encouraged the great architects and painters of his age in
   their immortal works of art. The building of the new church of St.
   Peter with its colossal cupola had begun under the direction of
   Bramante; the pencil of Michael Angelo was adorning the Sixtine chapel
   in the adjoining Vatican Palace with the pictures of the Prophets,
   Sibyls, and the last judgment; and the youthful genius of Raphael
   conceived his inimitable Madonna, with the Christ-child in her arms,
   and was transforming the chambers of the Vatican into galleries of
   undying beauty. These were the wonders of the new Italian art; but they
   had as little interest for the German monk as the temples and statues
   of classical Athens had for the Apostle Paul.

   When Luther came in sight of the eternal city he fell upon the earth,
   raised his hands and exclaimed, "Hail to thee, holy, Rome! [146] Thrice
   holy for the blood of martyrs shed here." He passed the colossal ruins
   of heathen Rome and the gorgeous palaces of Christian Rome. But he ran,
   "like a crazy saint," through all the churches and crypts and catacombs
   with an unquestioning faith in the legendary traditions about the
   relics and miracles of martyrs. [147] He wished that his parents were
   dead that he might help them out of purgatory by reading mass in the
   most holy place, according to the saying: "Blessed is the mother whose
   son celebrates mass on Saturday in St. John of the Lateran." He
   ascended on bended knees the twenty-eight steps of the famous Scala
   Santa (said to have been transported from the Judgment Hall of Pontius
   Pilate in Jerusalem), that he might secure the indulgence attached to
   this ascetic performance since the days of Pope Leo IV. in 850, but at
   every step the word of the Scripture sounded as a significant protest
   in his ear: "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17). [148]

   Thus at the very height of his mediaeval devotion he doubted its
   efficacy in giving peace to the troubled conscience. This doubt was
   strengthened by what he saw around him. He was favorably struck,
   indeed, with the business administration and police regulations of the
   papal court, but shocked by the unbelief, levity and immorality of the
   clergy. Money and luxurious living seemed to have replaced apostolic
   poverty and self-denial. He saw nothing but worldly splendor at the
   court of Pope Julius II., who had just returned from the sanguinary
   siege of a town conducted by him in person. He afterward thundered
   against him as a man of blood. He heard of the fearful crimes of Pope
   Alexander VI. and his family, which were hardly known and believed in
   Germany, but freely spoken of as undoubted facts in the fresh
   remembrance of all Romans. While he was reading one mass, a Roman
   priest would finish seven. He was urged to hurry up (passa, passa!),
   and to "send her Son home to our Lady." He heard priests, when
   consecrating the elements, repeat in Latin the words: "Bread thou art,
   and bread thou shalt remain; wine thou art, and wine thou shalt
   remain." The term "a good Christian" (buon Christiano) meant "a fool."
   He was told that "if there was a hell, Rome was built on it," and that
   this state of things must soon end in a collapse.

   He received the impression that "Rome, once the holiest city, was now
   the worst." He compared it to Jerusalem as described by the prophets.
   [149] All these sad experiences did not shake his faith in the Roman
   church and hierarchy, so unworthily represented, as the Jewish
   hierarchy was at the time of Christ; but they returned to his mind
   afterward with double force and gave ease and comfort to his conscience
   when he attacked and abused popery as "an institution of the devil."
   [150]

   Hence he often declared that he would not have missed "seeing Rome for
   a hundred thousand florins; for I might have felt some apprehension
   that I had done injustice to the Pope; but as we see, so we speak."

   Six years after his visit the building of St. Peter's Dome by means of
   the proceeds from papal indulgences furnished the occasion for the
   outbreak of that war which ended with an irrevocable separation from
   Rome.

   In the Pitti Gallery of Florence there is a famous picture of Giorgione
   which represents an unknown monk with strongly Teutonic features and
   brilliant eyes, seated between two Italians, playing on a small organ
   and looking dreamily to one side. This central figure has recently been
   identified by some connoisseurs as a portrait of Luther taken at
   Florence a few months before the death of Giorgione in 1511. The
   identity is open to doubt, but the resemblance is striking. [151]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [141] Luther's dicta about Rome and his Roman journey are collected in
   Walch's ed., vol. XXII., 2372-2379; Köhler: Luther's Reisen (1872), p.
   2-20; Jürgens, II., 266-358; Koestlin, I., 100-107; Lenz, 45-47; Kolde,
   I., 73-79; and in Brieger's "Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch," II., 460
   sqq. Comp. also, on the R. Cath. side, the brief account of Janssen,
   II., 72. Audin devotes his third chapter to the Roman journey (I.,
   52-65).

   [142] The chronology is not quite certain. The date 1511 is adopted by
   Köstlin and Kolde. Others date the Rome journey back to 1510
   (Mathesius, Seckendorf, Jürgens, and Luther himself, in his tract
   Against Popery invented by the Devil, Erl. ed. XXVI., 125, though once
   he names the year 1511).

   [143] Kolde (I., 81) conjectures that the decision of Rome in the
   controversy among the Augustinians went against Staupitz, who soon
   after 1512 left Wittenberg.

   [144] He passed through Suabia and Bavaria, as we may judge from his
   description of the people (Walch, XXII., 2359): "Wenn ich viel reisen
   sollte, wollte ich nirgends lieber, denn durch Schwaben und Baierland
   ziehen; denn sie sind freundlich und gutwillig, herbergen gerne, gehen
   Freunden und Wandersleuten entgegen, und thun den Leuten gütlich, und
   gute Ausrichtung um ihr Geld." He seems to have seen Switzerland also
   of which he says (ib., p. 2360): "Schweiz ist ein dürr und bergig Land,
   darum sind sie endlich und hurtig, müssen ihre Nahrung underswo
   suchen."

   [145] We seek in vain for descriptions of natural scenery among the
   ancient classics, but several Hebrew Psalms celebrate the glory of the
   Creator in his works. The Parables of our Lord imply that nature is
   full of spiritual lessons. The first descriptions of the beauties of
   nature in Christian literature are found in the Epistles of St. Basil,
   Gregory of Nazianzum and Gregory of Nyssa. See this Ch. Hist., vol.
   III., 896 sqq. The incomparable beauties of Switzerland were first duly
   appreciated and made known to the world by Albrecht von Haller of Bern
   (in his poem, "Die Alpen"), Goethe Schweizereise), and Schiller (in
   Wilhelm Tell, where he gives the most charming picture of the Lake of
   the Four Cantons, though he never was there).

   [146] "Salve! Sancta Roma."

   [147] "Auch ich war ein so toller Heiliger," he said, "lief durch alle
   Kirchen und Kluften, glaubte alles was daselbst erlogen und erstunken
   ist."

   [148] This interesting incident rests on the authority of his son Paul,
   who heard it from the lips of his father in 1544. Modern Popes, Pius
   VII. and Pius IX., have granted additional indulgences to those who
   climb up the Scala Santa.

   [149] "Es gehet uns wie den Propheten, die klagen auch über Jerusalem,
   und sagen: Die feine gläubige Stadt is zur Hure geworden. Denn aus dem
   Besten kommt allezeit das Aergste, wie die Exempel zeigen zu allen
   Zeiten." Walch, XXII., 2378.

   [150] This was the topic of one of his last and most abusive works:
   "Wider das Papstthum zu Rom vom Teufel gestiftet." March, 1545.

   [151] Comp."Revista Christiana," Firenze, 1883, p. 422. The picture on
   the opposite page (in the text) is from a photograph made in Florence.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 26. The University of Wittenberg.

   Grohmann: Annalen der Universität zu Wittenberg, 1802, 2 vols. Muther:
   Die Wittenberger Universitäts und Facultätsstudien v. Jahr 1508. Halle,
   1867. K. Schmidt: Wittenberg unter Kurfürst Friedrich dem Weisen.
   Erlangen, 1877. Juergens: II, 151 sqq. and 182 sqq. (very thorough).
   Koestlin, I., 90 sqq. Kolde: Friedrich der Weise und die Anfänge der
   Reformation, Erlangen, 1881; and his Leben Luther's, 1884, I., 67 sqq.

   In the year 1502 Frederick III., surnamed the Wise, Elector of Saxony (
   b. 1463, d. 1525), distinguished among the princes of the sixteenth
   century for his intelligence, wisdom, piety, and in cautious protection
   of the Reformation, founded from his limited means a new University at
   Wittenberg, under the patronage of the Virgin Mary and St. Augustin.
   The theological faculty was dedicated to the Apostle Paul, and on the
   anniversary of his conversion at Damascus a mass was to be celebrated
   and a sermon preached in the presence of the rector and the senate.

   Frederick was a devout Catholic, a zealous collector of relics, a
   believer in papal indulgences, a pilgrim to the holy land; but at the
   same time a friend of liberal learning, a protector of the person of
   Luther and of the new theology of the University of Wittenberg, which
   he called his daughter, and which be favored to the extent of his
   power. Shortly before his death he signified the acceptance of the
   evangelical faith by taking the communion in both kinds from Spalatin,
   his chaplain, counsellor and biographer, and mediator between him and
   Luther. He was unmarried and left no legitimate heir. His brother, John
   the Constant (1525-1532), and his nephew, John Frederick the
   Magnanimous (1532-1547), both firm Protestants, succeeded him; but the
   latter was deprived of the electoral dignity and part of his
   possessions by his victorious cousin Moritz, Duke of Saxony, after the
   battle of Mühlberg (1547). The successors of Moritz were the chief
   defenders of Lutheranism in Germany till Augustus I. (1694-1733) sold
   the faith of his ancestors for the royal crown of Poland and became a
   Roman Catholic.

   Wittenberg [152] was a poor and badly built town of about three
   thousand inhabitants in a dull, sandy, sterile plain on the banks of
   the Elbe, and owes its fame entirely to the fact that it became the
   nursery of the Reformation theology. Luther says that it lay at the
   extreme boundary of civilization, [153] a few steps from barbarism, and
   speaks of its citizens as wanting in culture, courtesy and kindness. He
   felt at times strongly tempted to leave it. Melanchthon who came from
   the fertile Palatinate, complained that he could get nothing fit to eat
   at Wittenberg. Myconius, Luther's friend, describes the houses as
   "small, old, ugly, low, wooden." Even the electoral castle is a very
   unsightly structure. The Elector laughed when Dr. Pollich first
   proposed the town as the seat of the new university. But Wittenberg was
   one of his two residences (the other being Torgau), had a new
   castle-church with considerable endowments and provision for ten
   thousand masses per annum and an Augustinian convent which could
   furnish a part of the teaching force, and thus cheapen the expenses of
   the institution.

   The university was opened October 18, 1502. The organization was
   intrusted to Dr. Pollich, the first rector, who on account of his
   extensive learning was called "lux mundi," and who had accompanied the
   Elector on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (1493), and to Staupitz, the first
   Dean of the theological faculty, who fixed his eye at once upon his
   friend Luther as a suitable professor of theology.

   Wittenberg had powerful rivals in the neighboring, older and better
   endowed Universities of Erfurt and Leipzig, but soon overshadowed them
   by the new theology. The principal professors were members of the
   Augustinian order, most of them from Tübingen and Erfurt. The number of
   students was four hundred and sixteen in the first semester, then
   declined to fifty-five in 1505, partly in consequence of the
   pestilence, began to rise again in 1507, and when Luther and
   Melanchthon stood on the summit of their fame, they attracted thousands
   of pupils from all countries of Europe. Melanchthon heard at times
   eleven languages spoken at his hospitable table.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [152] Probably, Weissenberg, from the white sand hills on the Elbe. So
   Jürgens II., 190. The original inhabitants of the region were Slavs
   (Wends), but expelled or absorbed by the Saxons. The town dates from
   the twelfth century.

   [153] "In termino civilitatis."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 27. Luther as Professor till 1517.

   Luther was suddenly called by Staupitz from the Augustinian Convent of
   Erfurt to that of Wittenberg with the expectation of becoming at the
   same time a lecturer in the university. He arrived there in October,
   1508, was called back to Erfurt in autumn, 1509, was sent to Rome in
   behalf of his order, 1510, returned to Wittenberg, 1511, and continued
   there till a few days before his death, 1546.

   He lived in the convent, even after his marriage. His plain study,
   bed-room and lecture-hall are still shown in the "Lutherhaus." The
   lowliness of his work-shop forms a sublime contrast to the grandeur of
   his work. From their humble dwellings Luther and Melanchthon exerted a
   mightier influence than the contemporary popes and kings from their
   gorgeous palaces.

   Luther combined the threefold office of sub-prior, preacher and
   professor. He preached both in his convent and in the town-church,
   sometimes daily for a week, sometimes thrice in one day, during Lent in
   1517 twice everyday. He was supported by the convent. As professor he
   took no fees from the students and received only a salary of one
   hundred guilders, which after his marriage was raised by the Elector
   John to two hundred guilders. [154]

   He first lectured on scholastic philosophy and explained the
   Aristotelian dialectics and physics. But he soon passed through the
   three grades of bachelor, licentiate, and doctor of divinity (October
   18th and 19th, 1512), and henceforth devoted himself exclusively to the
   sacred science which was much more congenial to his taste. Staupitz
   urged him into these academic dignities, [155] and the Elector who had
   been favorably impressed with one of his sermons, offered to pay the
   expenses (fifty guilders) for the acquisition of the doctorate. [156]
   Afterward in seasons of trouble Luther often took comfort from the
   title and office of his doctorate of divinity and his solemn oath to
   defend with all his might the Holy Scriptures against all errors. [157]
   He justified the burning of the Pope's Bull in the same way. But the
   oath of ordination and of the doctor of theology implied also obedience
   to the Roman church (ecclesiae Romanae obedientiam) and her defence
   against all heresies condemned by her. [158]

   With the year 1512 his academic teaching began in earnest and continued
   till 1546, at first in outward harmony with the Roman church, but
   afterward in open opposition to it.

   He was well equipped for his position, according to the advantages of
   his age, but, very poorly, according to modern requirements, as far as
   technical knowledge is concerned.Although a doctor of divinity, he
   relied for several years almost exclusively on the Latin version of the
   Scriptures. Very few professors knew Greek, and still less, Hebrew.
   Luther had acquired a superficial idea of Hebrew at Erfurt from
   Reuchlin's Rudimenta Hebraica. [159] The Greek he learned at
   Wittenberg, we do not know exactly when, mostly from books and from his
   colleagues, Johann Lange and Melanchthon. As late as Feb. 18th, 1518,
   he asked Lange, "the Greek," a question about the difference between
   ajnavqhma and ajnavqema, and confessed that he could not draw the Greek
   letters. [160] His herculean labor in translating the Bible forced him
   into a closer familiarity with the original languages, though he never
   attained to mastery. As a scholar he remained inferior to Reuchlin or
   Erasmus or Melanchthon, but as a genius he was their superior, and as a
   master of his native German he had no equal in all Germany. Moreover,
   he turned his knowledge to the best advantage, and always seized the
   strong point in controversy. He studied with all his might and often
   neglected eating and sleeping.

   Luther opened his theological teaching with David and Paul, who became
   the pillars of his theology. The Psalms and the Epistles to the Romans
   and Galatians remained his favorite books. His academic labors as a
   commentator extended over thirty-three years, from 1513 to 1546, his
   labors as a reformer embraced only twenty-nine years, from 1517 to
   1546. Beginning with the Psalms, 1513, he ended with Genesis, November
   17th, 1545) three months before his death.

   His first lectures on the Psalms are still extant and have recently
   been published from the manuscript in Wolfenbüttel. [161] They are
   exegetically worthless, but theologically important as his first
   attempt to extract a deeper spiritual meaning from the Psalms. He took
   Jerome's Psalter as the textual basis; [162] the few Hebrew etymologies
   are all derived from Jerome, Augustin (who knew no Hebrew), and
   Reuchlin's Lexicon. He followed closely the mediaeval method of
   interpretation which distinguished four different senses, and neglected
   the grammatical and historical interpretation. Thus Jerusalem means
   literally or historically the city in Palestine, allegorically the
   good, tropologically virtue, anagogically reward; Babylon means
   literally the city or empire of Babylon, allegorically the evil,
   tropologically vice, anagogically punishment. Then again one word may
   have four bad and four good senses, according as it is understood
   literally or figuratively. [163] Sometimes he distinguished six senses.
   He emphasized the prophetic character of the Psalms, and found Christ
   and his work everywhere. [164] He had no sympathy with the method of
   Nicolaus Lyra to understand the Psalter from the times of the writer.
   Afterward he learned to appreciate him. [165] He followed Augustin, the
   Glossa ordinaria, and especially the Quincuplex Psalterium of Faber
   Stapulensis (Paris, 1508 and 1513). He far surpassed himself in his
   later comments on the Psalms. [166] It was only by degrees that he
   emancipated himself from the traditional exegesis, and approached the
   only sound and safe method of grammatico-historical interpretation of
   Scripture from the natural meaning of the words, the situation of the
   writer and the analogy of his teaching, viewed in the light of the
   Scriptures as a whole. He never gave up altogether the scholalistic and
   allegorizing method of utilizing exegesis for dogmatic and devotional
   purposes, but he assigned it a subordinate place. "Allegories," he
   said, "may be used to teach the ignorant common people, who need to
   have the same thing impressed in various forms." He measured the
   Scriptures by his favorite doctrine of justification by faith, and
   hence depreciated important books, especially the Epistle of James and
   the Apocalypse. But when his dogmatic conviction required it, he laid
   too much stress on the letter, as in the eucharistic controversy.

   From the Psalms he proceeded to the Epistles of Paul. Here be had an
   opportunity to expound his ideas of sin and grace, the difference
   between the letter and the spirit, between the law and the gospel, and
   to answer the great practical question, how a sinner may be justified
   before a holy God and obtain pardon and peace. He first lectured on
   Romans and explained the difference between the righteousness of faith
   and the righteousness of works. He never published a work on Romans
   except a preface which contains a masterly description of faith. His
   lectures on Galatians he began October 27th, 1516, and resumed them
   repeatedly. They appeared first in Latin, September, 1519, and in a
   revised edition, 1523, with a preface of Melanchthon. [167] They are
   the most popular and effective of his commentaries, and were often
   published in different languages. John Bunyan was greatly benefited by
   them. Their chief value is that they bring us into living contact with
   the central idea of the epistle, namely, evangelical freedom in Christ,
   which he reproduced and adapted in the very spirit of Paul. Luther
   always had a special preference for this anti-Judaic Epistle and called
   it his sweetheart or his wife. [168]

   These exegetical lectures made a deep impression. They were thoroughly
   evangelical, without being anti-catholic. They reached the heart and
   conscience as well as the head. They substituted a living theology
   clothed with flesh and blood for the skeleton theology of
   scholasticism. They were delivered with the energy of intense
   conviction and the freshness of personal experience. The genius of the
   lecturer flashed from his deep dark eyes which seem to have struck
   every observer. "This monk," said Dr. Pollich, "will revolutionize the
   whole scholastic teaching." Christopher Scheurl commended Luther to the
   friendship of Dr. Eck (his later opponent) in January, 1517, as "a
   divine who explained the epistles of the man of Tarsus with wonderful
   genius." Melanchthon afterward expressed a general judgment when he
   said that Christ and the Apostles were brought out again as from the
   darkness and filth of prison.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [154] "Wäre es nicht geschehen," says Luther, "so hatte ich nach meiner
   Verheirathung mir vorgenommen, für Honorar zu lesen. Aber da mir Gott
   zuvorkam, so habe ich mein Leben lang kein Exemplar [he means, of his
   writings] verkauft noch gelesen um Lohn, will auch den Ruhm, will's
   Gott, mit mir ins Grab nehmen." Jürgens, II., 248 sq.

   [155] Luther remembered the pear tree under which Staupitz overcame his
   objections to the labors and responsibilities of the doctorate. He
   thought himself unable to endure them with his frail body, but Staupitz
   replied playfully and in prophetic anticipation of the great work in
   store for him: "In Gottes Namen! Unser Herr Gott hat grosse Geschäfte;
   Er bedarf droben auch kluger Leute; wenn Ihr nun sterbet, so müsset Ihr
   dort sein Rathgeber sein."

   [156] See K. F. Th. Schneider, Luther's Promotion zum Doctor und
   Melanchthon's zum Baccalaureus der Theologie, Neuwied, 1860 (38 pp.).
   He gives Luther's Latin oration which he delivered in honor of theology
   on the text: "I will give you a mouth and wisdom" (Luke 21:15). The
   expenses of the promotion to the degree of the baccalaureate, Luther
   never paid. The records of the dean note this fact: "Adhuc non
   satisfecit facultati," and Luther afterward wrote on the margin: "Nec
   faciet, quia tunc pauper et sub obedientia nihil habuit." Schneider, p.
   6.

   [157] See his utterances on the importance of his doctorate in
   Mathesius (I. and XV.) and Jürgens (II., 405-408). Jürgens points out
   and explains (p. 424 sqq.) the inconsistency of Luther in his appeal to
   human authority and overestimate of the official title. Every step in
   his public career was accompanied by scruples of conscience which he
   had to solve the best way he could.

   [158] Köstlin says (Engl. transl. of the short biography, p. 65):
   "Obedience to the Pope was not required at Wittenberg, as it was at
   other universities." But it is implied in obedience to the Roman
   church. The university was chartered by the Emperor Maximilian, but the
   Elector had not neglected to secure the papal sanction. See Jürgens II.
   207.

   [159] This book, published at Pforzheim, 1506, at the author's expense,
   is the first Hebrew grammar written by a Christian, and broke the path
   for Hebrew learning in Germany. So far Reuchlin was right in calling it
   a monumentum aere perennius.

   [160] DeWette, I. 34: "Petimus a te, Graece, ut controversiam nostram
   dissolvas, quae sit distantia inter anathema per epsilon, et anathema
   per e ... Nescio figuras literarum pingere." In his Table Talk he says:
   "Ich kann weder griechisch noch hebräisch; ich will aber dennoch einem
   Griechen und Hebräer ziemlich begegnen." Comp. on his linguistic
   studies and accomplishments, Jürgens, I. 470 sqq.; II. 428 sqq.

   [161] He had the Latin text of the Psalms printed, and wrote between
   the lines and on the margin his notes in very small and almost
   illegible letters. Köstlin gives a facsimile page in Luther's Leben, p.
   72 (Engl. ed. p. 64). The whole was published with painstaking accuracy
   by Kawerau in the third volume of the Weimar ed. (1885).

   [162] The innumerable references to the Hebraeus are never intended for
   the original, but for Jerome's Psalterium juxta Hebraeos. Paul de
   Lagarde has published an edition, Lips., 1874.

   [163] Luther illustrates this double four-fold scheme of exegesis by
   the following table (Weimar ed. III. 11):
   Litera Occidens hystorice terra Canaan Mons Zion Allegorice Synagoga
   vel persona eminens in eadem tropologice Justitia phari- saica et
   legalis anagogice Gloria futura secundum carnem
   SpiritusVivificans de corpore hystorice populus in Zion exis- tens
   Babylonico Ecclesiastico Mons Zion Allegorice Ecclesia vel quilibit
   doctor Episcopus eminens Tropologice Justitia fidei vel alia excellen
   ... Anagogice gloria eterna in celis.
   Econtra Vallis Cedron per oppositum.

   [164] This fanciful allegorizing and spiritualizing method of
   interpreting the Psalms by which they are made to teach almost anything
   that is pious and edifying, is still popular even in some Protestant
   churches, especially the Church of England. Comp. e.g. Dr. Neale and
   Dr. Littledale's Commentary on the Psalms from primitive and mediaeval
   writers. London, fourth ed., 1884, 4 vols. The celebrated Baptist
   preacher, Spurgeon, has written a commentary on the Psalms, in seven
   volumes, which is likewise full of allegorizing interpretation, but
   mostly derived from older Protestant and Puritan sources.

   [165] Hence the saying: "Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset."

   [166] Ed. by Dr. Bertheau in the fourth vol. of the Weimar ed. (1886).

   [167] See the first ed. in the Weimar ed. of his works, vol. II.
   436-618. This commentary of 1519 must be distinguished from the larger
   work of 1535 which has the same title, but rests on different lectures.

   [168] In December, 1531: "Epistola ad Galatas ist meine Epistola, der
   ich mich vertraut habe, meine Kethe von Bora." Weimar ed. II. 437.
   Melanchthon called Luther's commentary the thread of Theseus in the
   labyrinth of N. T. exegesis.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 28. Luther and Mysticism. The Theologia Germanica.

   In 1516 Luther read the sermons of Tauler, the mystic revival preacher
   of Strassburg (who died in 1361), and discovered the remarkable book
   called "German Theology," which he ascribed to Tauler, but which is of
   a little later date from a priest and custos of the Deutsch-Herrn Haus
   of Frankfort, and a member of the association called "Friends of God."
   It resembles the famous work of Thomas a Kempis in exhibiting Christian
   piety as an humble imitation of the life of Christ on earth, but goes
   beyond it, almost to the very verge of pantheism, by teaching in the
   strongest terms the annihilation of self-will and the absorption of the
   soul in God. Without being polemical, it represents by its intense
   inwardness a striking contrast to the then prevailing practice of
   religion as a mechanical and monotonous round of outward acts and
   observances.

   Luther published a part of this book from an imperfect manuscript,
   December, 1516, and from a complete copy, in 1518, with a brief preface
   of his own. [169] He praises it as rich and overprecious in divine
   wisdom, though poor and unadorned in words and human wisdom. He places
   it next to the Bible and St. Augustin in its teaching about God,
   Christ, man, and all things, and says in conclusion that "the German
   divines are doubtless the best divines."

   There are various types of mysticism, orthodox and heretical,
   speculative and practical. [170] Luther came in contact with the
   practical and catholic type through Staupitz and the writings of St.
   Augustin, St. Bernard, and Tauler. It deepened and spiritualized his
   piety and left permanent traces on his theology. The Lutheran church,
   like the Catholic, always had room for mystic tendencies. But mysticism
   alone could not satisfy him, especially after the Reformation began in
   earnest. It was too passive and sentimental and shrunk from conflict.
   It was a theology of feeling rather than of action. Luther was a born
   fighter, and waxed stronger and stronger in battle. His theology is
   biblical, with such mystic elements as the Bible itself contains. [171]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [169] Both prefaces are printed in the Weimar ed. of his works I. 153
   and 378 sq. The book itself has gone through many editions; the best is
   by Franz Pfeiffer, Theologia deutsch, Stuttgart. 1851, third ed. 1855.
   There is a English translation by Susanna Winkworth, Theologia
   Germanica, with additions by Canon Kingsley and Chevalier Bunsen,
   (London, 1854, new ed. 1874; reprinted at Andover, 1846). Several
   characteristic mystic terms, as Entwerdung, Gelassenheit, Vergottung,
   are hardly translatable.

   [170] Ed. von Hartmann, the pessimist says (Die Philos. des
   Unbewussten, Berlin, 1869, p. 276): "Die Mystik ist eine
   Schlingpflanze, die an jedem Stabe emporwuchert und sich mit den
   extremsten Gegensätzen gleichgut abzufinden weiss."

   [171] See Hermann Hering, Die Mystik Luthers im Zusammenhange seiner
   Theologieund in ihrem Verh. zur älteren Mystik. Leipzig, 1879. He
   distinguishes three periods in Luther's relation to mysticism: (1)
   Romanisch-mystische Periode; (2) Germanisch-mystische Periode; (3)
   Conflict with the false mysticism of Münzer, Carlstadt, the Zwickau
   Prophets, and Schwenkfeldt.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 29. The Penitential Psalms. The Eve of the Reformation.

   The first original work which Luther published was a German exposition
   of the seven Penitential Psalms, 1517. [172] It was a fit introduction
   to the reformatory Theses which enjoin the true evangelical repentance.
   In this exposition he sets forth the doctrines of sin and grace and the
   comfort of the gospel for the understanding of the common people. It
   shows him first in the light of a popular author, and had a wide
   circulation.

   Luther was now approaching the prime of manhood. He was the shining
   light of the young university, and his fame began to spread through
   Germany. But he stood not alone. He had valuable friends and co-workers
   such as Dr. Wenzeslaus Link, the prior of the convent, and John Lange,
   who had a rare knowledge of Greek. Carlstadt also, his senior
   colleague, was at that time in full sympathy with him. Nicolaus von
   Amsdorf, of the same age with Luther, was one of his most faithful
   adherents, but more influential in the pulpit than in the chair.
   Christoph Scheurl, Professor of jurisprudence, was likewise intimate
   with Luther. Nor must we forget Georg Spalatin, who did not belong to
   the university, but had great influence upon it as chaplain and
   secretary of the Elector Frederick, and acted as friendly mediator
   between him and Luther. The most effective aid the Reformer received,
   in 1518, in the person of Melanchthon. [173]

   The working forces of the Reformation were thus fully prepared and
   ready for action. The scholastic philosophy and theology were
   undermined, and a biblical, evangelical theology ruled in Wittenberg.
   It was a significant coincidence, that the first edition of the Greek
   Testament was published by Erasmus in 1516, just a year before the
   Reformation. [174]

   Luther had as yet no idea of reforming the Catholic church, and still
   less of separating from it. All the roots of his life and piety were in
   the historic church, and he considered himself a good Catholic even in
   1517, and was so in fact. He still devoutly prayed to the Virgin Mary
   from the pulpit; he did not doubt the intercession of saints in heaven
   for the sinners on earth; he celebrated mass with full belief in the
   repetition of the sacrifice on the cross and the miracle of
   transubstantiation; he regarded the Hussites as "sinful heretics" for
   breaking away from the unity of the church and the papacy which offered
   a bulwark against sectarian division.

   But by the leading of Providence he became innocently and reluctantly a
   Reformer. A series of events carried him irresistibly from step to
   step, and forced him far beyond his original intentions. Had he
   foreseen the separation, he would have shrunk from it in horror. He was
   as much the child of his age as its father, and the times molded him
   before he molded the times. This is the case with all men of
   Providence: they are led by a divine hand while they are leading their
   fellow-men.

   NOTES.

   The works of Luther written before the 95 Theses (reprinted in the
   Weimar ed., I. 1-238, III., IV.) are as follows: Commentary on the
   Psalms; a number of sermons; Tractatus de his, qui ad ecclesias
   confugiunt (an investigation of the right of asylum; first printed
   1517, anonymously, then under Luther's name, 1520, at Landshut; but of
   doubtful genuineness); Sermo praescriptus praeposito in Litzka, 1512 (a
   Latin sermon prepared for his friend, the Provost Georg Mascov of
   Leitzkau in Brandenburg); several Latin Sermons from 1514-1517;
   Quaestio de viribus et voluntate hominis sine gratia disputata, 1516;
   Preface to his first edition of "German Theology," 1516; The seven
   Penitential Psalms, 1517; Disputatio contra scholasticam theologiam,
   1517. The last are 97 theses against the philosophy of Aristotle, of
   whom he said, that he would hold him to be a devil if he had not had
   flesh. These theses were published in September, 1517, and were
   followed in October by the 95 Theses against the traffic in
   Indulgences.

   The earliest letters of Luther, from April 22, 1507, to Oct. 31, 1517,
   are addressed to Braun (vicar at Eisenach), Spalatin (chaplain of the
   Elector Frederick), Lohr (prior of the Augustinian Convent at Erfurt),
   John Lange, Scheurl, and others. They are printed in Latin in Löscher's
   Reformations-Acta, vol. . 795-846; in De Wette's edition of Luther's
   Briefe, I. 1-64; German translation in Walch, vol. XXI. The last of
   these ante-Reformation letters is directed to Archbishop Albrecht of
   Mainz, and dated from the day of the publication of the Theses, Oct.
   31, 1517 (DeWette I. 67-70). The letters begin with the name of
   "Jesus."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [172] Weimar ed., vol. I. 154-220. A Latin copy had appeared already in
   1513 and is preserved in the library at Wolfenbüttel, from which Prof.
   E. Riehm of Halle published it: Initium theologiae Lutheri. S. exempla
   scholiorum quibus D. Lutherus Psalterium interpretari coepit. Part. I.
   Septem Psalms paenitentiales. Textum originalem nunc primum de Lutheri
   autographo exprimendum curavit. Halle, 1874. Luther's closing lectures
   of 1516 exist likewise in MS. at Dresden, from which they were
   published by J. C. Seidemann in: Doctoris M. Lutheri scholae ineditae
   de Psalmis annis 1513-1516. Dresden, 1876, in 2 vols.

   [173] On the early colleagues of Luther, see Jürgens, II. 217-235.

   [174] Luther made good use of it for his translation, but was not
   pleased with the writings of Erasmus. As early as March 1, 1517, he
   wrote to John Lange: "I now read our Erasmus, but he pleases me less
   every day. It is well enough that he should constantly and learnedly
   refute the monks and priests, and charge them with a deep-rooted and
   sleepy ignorance. But I fear he does not sufficiently promote Christ
   and the grace of God, of which he knows very little. He thinks more of
   the human than the divine .... Not every one who is a good Greek and
   Hebrew, is also for this reason a good Christian. The blessed Jerome
   with his five tongues did not equal the one-tongued Augustin, although
   Erasmus thinks differently."--Briefe, ed. De Wette, I. 52.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   CHAPTER III.

   THE GERMAN REFORMATION FROM THE PUBLICATION OF LUTHER'S THESES TO THE
   DIET OF WORMS, a.d. 1517-1521.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 30. The Sale of Indulgences.

   St. Peter's Dome is at once the glory and the shame of papal Rome. It
   was built over the bones of the Galilaean fisherman, with the proceeds
   from the sale of indulgences which broke up the unity of Western
   Christendom. The magnificent structure was begun in 1506 under Pope
   Julius II., and completed in 1626 at a cost of forty-six millions
   scudi, and is kept up at an annual expense of thirty thousand scudi
   (dollars). [175]

   Jesus began his public ministry with the expulsion of the profane
   traffickers from the court of the temple. The Reformation began with a
   protest against the traffic in indulgences which profaned and degraded
   the Christian religion.

   The difficult and complicated doctrine of indulgences is peculiar to
   the Roman Church. It was unknown to the Greek and Latin fathers. It was
   developed by the mediaeval schoolmen, and sanctioned by the Council of
   Trent (Dec. 4, 1563), yet without a definition and with an express
   warning against abuses and evil gains. [176]

   In the legal language of Rome, indulgentia is a term for amnesty or
   remission of punishment. In ecclesiastical Latin, an indulgence means
   the remission of the temporal (not the eternal) punishment of sin (not
   of sin itself), on condition of penitence and the payment of money to
   the church or to some charitable object. It maybe granted by a bishop
   or archbishop within his diocese, while the Pope has the power to grant
   it to all Catholics. The practice of indulgences grew out of a custom
   of the Northern and Western barbarians to substitute pecuniary
   compensation for punishment of an offense. The church favored this
   custom in order to avoid bloodshed, but did wrong in applying it to
   religious offenses. Who touches money touches dirt; and the less
   religion has to do with it, the better. The first instances of such
   pecuniary compensations occurred in England under Archbishop Theodore
   of Canterbury (d. 690). The practice rapidly spread on the Continent,
   and was used by the Popes during and after the crusades as a means of
   increasing their power. It was justified and reduced to a theory by the
   schoolmen, especially by Thomas Aquinas, in close connection with the
   doctrine of the sacrament of penance and priestly absolution. [177]

   The sacrament of penance includes three elements,--contrition of the
   heart, confession by the mouth (to the priest), and satisfaction by
   good works, such as prayer, fasting, almsgiving, pilgrimages, all of
   which are supposed to have an atoning efficacy. God forgives only the
   eternal punishment of sin, and he alone can do that; but the sinner has
   to bear the temporal punishments, either in this life or in purgatory;
   and these punishments are under the control of the church or the
   priesthood, especially the Pope as its legitimate head. There are also
   works of supererogation, performed by Christ and by the saints, with
   corresponding extra-merits and extra-rewards; and these constitute a
   rich treasury from which the Pope, as the treasurer, can dispense
   indulgences for money. This papal power of dispensation extends even to
   the departed souls in purgatory, whose sufferings may thereby be
   abridged. This is the scholastic doctrine.

   The granting of indulgences degenerated, after the time of the
   crusades, into a regular traffic, and became a source of ecclesiastical
   and monastic wealth. A good portion of the profits went into the papal
   treasury. Boniface VIII. issued the first Bull of the jubilee
   indulgence to all visitors of St. Peter's in Rome (1300). It was to be
   confined to Rome, and to be repeated only once in a hundred years, but
   it was afterwards extended and multiplied as to place and time.

   The idea of selling and buying by money the remission of punishment and
   release from purgatory was acceptable to ignorant and superstitious
   people, but revolting to sound moral feeling. It roused, long before
   Luther, the indignant protest of earnest minds, such as Wiclif in
   England, Hus in Bohemia, John von Wesel in Germany, John Wessel in
   Holland, Thomas Wyttenbach in Switzerland, but without much effect.

   The Lateran Council of 1517 allowed the Pope to collect one-tenth of
   all the ecclesiastical property of Christendom, ostensibly for a war
   against the Turks; but the measure was carried only by a small majority
   of two or three votes, and the minority objected that there was no
   immediate prospect of such a war. The extortions of the Roman curia
   became an intolerable burden to Christendom, and produced at last a
   successful protest which cost the papacy the loss of its fairest
   possessions.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [175] On St. Peter's church, see the archaeological and historical
   works on Rome, and especially Heinr. von Geymüller, Die Entwürfe für
   Sanct Peterin Rom, Wien (German and French); and Charles de Lorbac,
   Saint-Pierre de Rome, illustré de plus de 130 gravures sur bois, Rome,
   1879 (pp. 310).

   [176] The Council incidentally admits that these evil gains have been
   the most prolific source of abuses,--"unde plurima in Christiano populo
   abusuum causa fluxit,"--and hence it ordained that they are to be
   wholly abolished: "omnino abolendos esse."(Schaff, Creeds of
   Christendom, II. 205 sq.) A strong proof of the effect of the
   Reformation upon the Church of Rome.

   [177] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Pars III. Quaest. LXXXIV., De
   Sacramento Poenitentiae; and in the supplement to the Third Part,
   Quaest. XXV.-XXVIL, De Indulgentia. Comp. literature in vol. IV. 381.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 31. Luther and Tetzel.

   I. On the Indulgence controversy: Luther's Works, Walch's ed., XV.
   3-462; Weim. ed. I. 229-324. Löscher: Reformations-Acta. Leipzig, 1720.
   Vol. I. 355-539. J. Kapp: Schauplatz des Tetzelschen Ablass-krams.
   Leipzig, 1720. Jürgens: Luther, Bd. III. Kahnis: Die d. Ref., I. 18 1
   sqq. Köstlin I. 153 sqq. Kolde, I. 126 sqq. On the Roman-Catholic side,
   Janssen: Geschichte, etc., II. 64 sqq.; 77 sqq.; and An meine Kritiker,
   Freiburg-i.-B., 1883, pp. 66-81.--On the editions of the Theses,
   compare Knaake, in the Weimar ed. I. 229 sqq.

   Edw. Bratke: Luther's 95 Thesen und ihre dogmengesch. Voraussetzungen.
   Göttingen, 1884 (pp. 333). Gives an account of the scholastic doctrine
   of indulgences from Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas down to Prierias and
   Cajetan, an exposition of Luther's Theses, and a list of books on the
   subject. A. W. Dieckhoff (of Rostock): Der Ablassstreit.
   Dogmengeschichtlich dargestellt. Gotha, 1886 (pp. 260).

   II. On Tetzel in particular: (1) Protestant biographies and tracts, all
   very unfavorable. (a) Older works by G. Hecht: Vita Joh. Tetzeli.
   Wittenberg, 1717. Jac. Vogel: Leben des päpstlichen Gnadenpredigers und
   Ablasskrämers Tetzel. Leipzig, 1717, 2d ed., 1727. (b) Modern works: F.
   G. Hofmann: Lebensbeschreibung des Ablasspredigers Tetzel. Leipzig,
   1844. Dr. Kayser: Geschichtsquellen über Den Ablasspred. Tetzel
   Kritisch Beleuchtet. Annaberg, 1877 (pp. 20). Dr. Ferd. Körner: Tetzel,
   der Ablassprediger, etc. Frankenberg-i.-S. 1880 (pp. 153; chiefly
   against Gröne). Compare also Bratke and Dieckhoff, quoted above.

   (2) Roman-Catholic vindications of Tetzel by Val. Gröne (Dr. Th.):
   Tetzel und Luther, oder Lebensgesch. und Rechtfertigung des
   Ablasspredigers und Inquisitors Dr. Joh. Tetzel aus dem Predigerorden.
   Soest und Olpe, 1853, 2d ed. 1860 (pp. 237). E. Kolbe: P. Joh. Tetzel.
   Ein Lebensbild dem kathol. Volke gewidmet. Steyl, 1882 (pp. 98, based
   on Gröne). K. W. Hermann: Joh. Tetzel, der päpstl. Ablassprediger.
   Frankf. -a.-M., 2te Aufl. 1883 (pp. 152). Janssen: An meine Kritiker,
   p. 73 sq. G. A. Meijer, Ord. Praed. (Dominican): Johann Tetzel,
   Aflaatprediker en inquisiteur. Eene geschiedkundige studie. Utrecht,
   1885 (pp. 150). A calm and moderate vindication of Tetzel, with the
   admission (p. 137) that the last word on the question has not yet been
   spoken, and that we must wait for the completion of the Regesta of Leo
   X. and other authentic publications now issuing from the Vatican
   archives by direction of Leo XIII. But the main facts are well
   established.

   The rebuilding of St. Peter's Church in Rome furnished an occasion for
   the periodical exercise of the papal power of granting indulgences.
   Julius II. and Leo X., two of the most worldly, avaricious, and
   extravagant Popes, had no scruple to raise funds for that object, and
   incidentally for their own aggrandizement, from the traffic in
   indulgences. Both issued several bulls to that effect. [178]

   Spain, England, and France ignored or resisted these bulls for
   financial reasons, refusing to be taxed for the benefit of Rome. But
   Germany, under the weak rule of Maximilian, yielded to the papal
   domination.

   Leo divided Germany into three districts, and committed in 1515 the
   sale for one district to Albrecht, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg,
   and brother of the Elector of Brandenburg. [179]

   This prelate (born June 28, 1490, died Sept. 24, 1545), though at that
   time only twenty-five years of age, stood at the head of the German
   clergy, and was chancellor of the German Empire. He received also the
   cardinal's hat in 1518. He was, like his Roman master, a friend of
   liberal learning and courtly splendor, worldly-minded, and ill fitted
   for the care of souls. He had the ambition to be the Maecenas of
   Germany. He was himself destitute of theological education, but called
   scholars, artists, poets, free-thinkers, to his court, and honored
   Erasmus and Ulrich von Hutten with presents and pensions. "He had a
   passionate love for music," says an Ultramontane historian, "and
   imported musicians from Italy to give luster to his feasts, in which
   ladies often participated. Finely wrought carpets, splendid mirrors
   adorned his halls and chambers; costly dishes and wines covered his
   table. He appeared in public with great pomp; he kept a body-guard of
   one hundred and fifty armed knights; numerous courtiers in splendid
   attire followed him when he rode out; he was surrounded by pages who
   were to learn in his presence the refinement of cavaliers." The same
   Roman-Catholic historian censures the extravagant court of Pope Leo X.,
   which set the example for the secularization and luxury of the prelates
   in Germany. [180]

   Albrecht was largely indebted to the rich banking-house of Fugger in
   Augsburg, from whom he had borrowed thirty thousand florins in gold to
   pay for the papal pallium. By an agreement with the Pope, he had
   permission to keep half of the proceeds arising from the sale of
   indulgences. The agents of that commercial house stood behind the
   preachers of indulgence, and collected their share for the repayment of
   the loan.

   The Archbishop appointed Johann Tetzel (Diez) of the Dominican order,
   his commissioner, who again employed his sub-agents.

   Tetzel was born between 1450 and 1460, at Leipzig, and began his career
   as a preacher of indulgences in 1501. He became famous as a popular
   orator and successful hawker of indulgences. He was prior of a
   Dominican convent, doctor of philosophy, and papal inquisitor
   (haereticae pravitatis inquisitor). At the end of 1517 he acquired in
   the University of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder the degree of Licentiate of
   Theology, and in January, 1518, the degree of Doctor of Theology, by
   defending, in two disputations, the doctrine of indulgences against
   Luther. [181] He died at Leipzig during the public debate between Eck
   and Luther, July, 1519. He is represented by Protestant writers as an
   ignorant, noisy, impudent, and immoral charlatan, who was not ashamed
   to boast that he saved more souls from purgatory by his letters of
   indulgence than St. Peter by his preaching. [182] On the other hand,
   Roman Catholic historians defend him as a learned and zealous servant
   of the church. He has only an incidental notoriety, and our estimate of
   his character need not affect our views on the merits of the
   Reformation. We must judge him from his published sermons and
   anti-theses against Luther. They teach neither more nor less than the
   usual scholastic doctrine of indulgences based on an extravagant theory
   of papal authority. He does not ignore, as is often asserted, the
   necessity of repentance as a condition of absolution. [183] But he
   probably did not emphasize it in practice, and gave rise by unguarded
   expressions to damaging stories. His private character was certainly
   tainted, if we are to credit such a witness as the papal nuncio, Carl
   von Miltitz, who had the best means of information, and charged him
   with avarice, dishonesty, and sexual immorality. [184]

   Tetzel traveled with great pomp and circumstance through Germany, and
   recommended with unscrupulous effrontery and declamatory eloquence the
   indulgences of the Pope to the large crowds who gathered from every
   quarter around him. He was received like a messenger from heaven.
   Priests, monks, and magistrates, men and women, old and young, marched
   in solemn procession with songs, flags, and candles, under the ringing
   of bells, to meet him and his fellow-monks, and followed them to the
   church; the papal Bull on a velvet cushion was placed on the high
   altar, a red cross with a silken banner bearing the papal arms was
   erected before it, and a large iron chest was put beneath the cross for
   the indulgence money. Such chests are still preserved in many places.
   The preachers, by daily sermons, hymns, and processions, urged the
   people, with extravagant laudations of the Pope's Bull, to purchase
   letters of indulgence for their own benefit, and at the same time
   played upon their sympathies for departed relatives and friends whom
   they might release from their sufferings in purgatory "as soon as the
   penny tinkles in the box." [185]

   The common people eagerly embraced this rare offer of salvation from
   punishment, and made no clear distinction between the guilt and
   punishment of sin; after the sermon they approached with burning
   candles the chest, confessed their sins, paid the money, and received
   the letter of indulgence which they cherished as a passport to heaven.
   But intelligent and pious men were shocked at such scandal. The
   question was asked, whether God loved money more than justice, and why
   the Pope, with his command over the boundless treasury of extra-merits,
   did not at once empty the whole purgatory for the rebuilding of St.
   Peter's, or build it with his own money.

   Tetzel approached the dominions of the Elector of Saxony, who was
   himself a devout worshiper of relics, and had great confidence in
   indulgences, but would not let him enter his territory from fear that
   he might take too much money from his subjects. So Tetzel set up his
   trade on the border of Saxony, at Jüterbog, a few hours from
   Wittenberg. [186]

   There he provoked the protest of the Reformer, who had already in the
   summer of 1516 preached a sermon of warning against trust in
   indulgences, and had incurred the Elector's displeasure by his aversion
   to the whole system, although he himself had doubts about some
   important questions connected with it.

   Luther had experienced the remission of sin as a free gift of grace to
   be apprehended by a living faith. This experience was diametrically
   opposed to a system of relief by means of payments in money. It was an
   irrepressible conflict of principle. He could not be silent when that
   barter was carried to the very threshold of his sphere of labor. As a
   preacher, a pastor, and a professor, he felt it to be his duty to
   protest against such measures: to be silent was to betray his theology
   and his conscience.

   The jealousy between the Augustinian order to which he belonged, and
   the Dominican order to which Tetzel belonged, may have exerted some
   influence, but it was certainly very subordinate. A laboring mountain
   may produce a ridiculous mouse, but no mouse can give birth to a
   mountain. The controversy with Tetzel (who is not even mentioned in
   Luther's Theses) was merely the occasion, but not the cause, of the
   Reformation: it was the spark which exploded the mine. The Reformation
   would have come to pass sooner or later, if no Tetzel had ever lived;
   and it actually did break out in different countries without any
   connection with the trade in indulgences, except in German Switzerland,
   where Bernhardin Samson acted the part of Tetzel, but after Zwingli had
   already begun his reforms.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [178] See the papal documents in Pallavicini, in Löscher (I. 369-383),
   and Walch, L.'s Werke, XV. 313 sqq. Compare Gieseler, IV. 21 sq. (New
   York ed.); Hergenröther's Regesta Leonis X. (1884 sqq.).

   [179] J. May: Der Kurfürst Albrecht. II. von Mainz, München, 1875, 2
   vols.

   [180] Janssen, II. 60, 64: "Das Hofwesen so mancher geistlichen Fürsten
   Deutschlands, insbesondere das des Erzbischofs Albrecht von Mainz,
   stand in schreiendem Widerspruch mit dem eines kirchlichen
   Würdeträgers, aber der Hof Leo's X., mit seinem Aufwand für Spiel und
   Theater und allerlei weltliche Feste entsprach noch weniger der
   Bestimmung eines Oberhauptes der Kirche. Der Verweltlichung und
   Ueppigkeit geistlicher Fürstenhöfe in Deutschland ging die des
   römischen Hofes voraus, und erstere wäre ohne diese kaum möglich
   gewesen." He quotes (II. 76) Emser and Cardinal Sadolet against the
   abuses of indulgences in the reign of Leo X. Cardinal Hergenröther, in
   the dedicatory preface to the Regesta Leonis X. (Fasc. I. p. ix), while
   defending this Pope against the charge of religious indifference,
   censures the accumulation of ecclesiastical benefices by the same
   persons, as Albrecht, and the many abuses resulting therefrom.

   [181] Löscher (I. 505-523) gives both dissertations, the first
   consisting of 106, the second of 50 theses, and calls them "Proben von
   den stinkenden Schäden des Papstthutms." He ascribes, however, the
   authorship to Conrad Wimpina, professor of theology at
   Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, who afterwards published them as his own,
   without mentioning Tetzel, in his Anacephalaiosis Sectarum errorum,
   etc., 1528 (Löscher, I. 506, II. 7). Gieseler, Köstlin, and Knaake are
   of the same opinion. Gröne and Hergenröther assign them to Tetzel.

   [182] Mathesius, Myconius, and Luther (Wider Hans Wurst, 1541, in the
   Erl. ed. XXVI. 51) ascribe to him also the blasphemous boast that he
   had the power by letters of indulgence to forgive even a carnal sin
   against the Mother of God ("wenn einer gleich die heil. Jungfrau Maria,
   Gottes Mutter, hätte geschächt und geschwängert"). Luther alludes to
   such a monstrous saying in Thes. 75, and calls it insane. But Tetzel
   denied, and disproved the charge as a slander, in his Disp. I. 99-101
   ("Subcommissariis ac praedicatoribus veniarum Imponere, ut si quis per
   impossibile Dei genetricem semper virginein violasset ... Odio Agitari
   Ac Fratrum Suorum Sanguinem Sitire"), and in his letter to Miltitz,
   Jan. 31, 1518. See Köstlin, I. 160 and 785, versus Körner and Kahnis.
   Kayser also (l.c. p. 15) gives it up, although he comes to the
   conclusion that Tetzel was "ein unverschämter und sittenloser
   Ablassprediger" (p. 20).

   [183] In Theses 55 and 56 of his first Disputation (1517), he says that
   the soul, after it is purified (anima purgata, ist eine Seele
   gereinigt), flies from purgatory to the vision of God without
   hinderance, and that it is an error to suppose that this cannot be done
   before the payment of money into the indulgence box. See the Latin text
   in Löscher, I. 509.

   [184] "Auch hatte er zwei Kinder." The letter of Miltitz is printed in
   Löscher, III. 20; in Walch, XV. 862; and in Kayser, l.c. 4 and 5.
   Tetzel's champions try to invalidate the testimony of the papal
   delegate by charging him with intemperance. But drunkards, like
   children and fools, usually tell the truth; and when he wrote that
   letter, he was sober. Besides, we have the independent testimony of
   Luther, who says in his book against Duke Henry of Brunswick (Wider
   Hans Wurst, p. 50), that in 1517 Tetzel was condemned by the Emperor
   Maximilian to be drowned in the Inn at Innsbruck ("for his great
   virtue's sake, you may well believe"), but saved by the Duke Frederick,
   and reminded of it afterwards in the Theses-controversy, and that he
   confessed the fact.

   [185] Sobald der Pfennig im Kasten klingt, Die Seel' aus dem Fegfeuer
   springt." Mathesius and Johann Hess, two contemporary witnesses,
   ascribe this sentence (with slight verbal modifications) to Tetzel
   himself. Luther mentions it in Theses 27 and 28, and in his book Wider
   Hans Wurst (Erl. ed. xxvi. 51).

   [186] Jüterbog is now a Prussian town of about seven thousand
   inhabitants, on the railroad between Berlin and Wittenberg. In the
   Nicolai church, Tetzel's chest of indulgences is preserved.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 32. The Ninety-five Theses. Oct. 31, 1517.

   Lit. in § 31.

   After serious deliberation, without consulting any of his colleagues or
   friends, but following an irresistible impulse, Luther resolved upon a
   public act of unforeseen consequences. It may be compared to the stroke
   of the axe with which St. Boniface, seven hundred years before, had cut
   down the sacred oak, and decided the downfall of German heathenism. He
   wished to elicit the truth about the burning question of indulgences,
   which he himself professed not fully to understand at the time, and
   which yet was closely connected with the peace of conscience and
   eternal salvation. He chose the orderly and usual way of a learned
   academic disputation.

   Accordingly, on the memorable thirty-first day of October, 1517, which
   has ever since been celebrated in Protestant Germany as the birthday of
   the Reformation, at twelve o'clock he affixed (either himself or
   through another) to the doors of the castle-church at Wittenberg,
   ninety-five Latin Theses on the subject of indulgences, and invited a
   public discussion. At the same time he sent notice of the fact to
   Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, and to Bishop Hieronymus Scultetus, to
   whose diocese Wittenberg belonged. He chose the eve of All Saints' Day
   (Nov. 1), because this was one of the most frequented feasts, and
   attracted professors, students, and people from all directions to the
   church, which was filled with precious relics. [187]

   No one accepted the challenge, and no discussion took place. The
   professors and students of Wittenberg were of one mind on the subject.
   But history itself undertook the disputation and defence. The Theses
   were copied, translated, printed, and spread as on angels' wings
   throughout Germany and Europe in a few weeks. [188]

   The rapid circulation of the Reformation literature was promoted by the
   perfect freedom of the press. There was, as yet, no censorship, no
   copyright, no ordinary book-trade in the modern sense, and no
   newspapers; but colportors, students, and friends carried the books and
   tracts from house to house. The mass of the people could not read, but
   they listened attentively to readers. The questions of the Reformation
   were eminently practical, and interested all classes; and Luther
   handled the highest themes in the most popular style.

   The Theses bear the title, "Disputation to explain the Virtue of
   Indulgences." They sound very strange to a modern ear, and are more
   Catholic than Protestant. They are no protest against the Pope and the
   Roman Church, or any of her doctrines, not even against indulgences,
   but only against their abuse. They expressly condemn those who speak
   against indulgences (Th. 71), and assume that the Pope himself would
   rather see St. Peter's Church in ashes than have it built with the
   flesh and blood of his sheep (Th. 50). They imply belief in purgatory.
   They nowhere mention Tetzel. They are silent about faith and
   justification, which already formed the marrow of Luther's theology and
   piety. He wished to be moderate, and had not the most distant idea of a
   separation from the mother church. When the Theses were republished in
   his collected works (1545), he wrote in the preface: "I allow them to
   stand, that by them it may appear how weak I was, and in what a
   fluctuating state of mind, when I began this business. I was then a
   monk and a mad papist (papista insanissimus), and so submersed in the
   dogmas of the Pope that I would have readily murdered any person who
   denied obedience to the Pope."

   But after all, they contain the living germs of a new theology. The
   form only is Romish, the spirit and aim are Protestant. We must read
   between the lines, and supply the negations of the Theses by the
   affirmations from his preceding and succeeding books, especially his
   Resolutiones, in which he answers objections, and has much to say about
   faith and justification. The Theses represent a state of transition
   from twilight to daylight. They reveal the mighty working of an earnest
   mind and conscience intensely occupied with the problem of sin,
   repentance, and forgiveness, and struggling for emancipation from the
   fetters of tradition. They might more properly be called "a disputation
   to diminish the virtue of papal indulgences, and to magnify the full
   and free grace of the gospel of Christ." They bring the personal
   experience of justification by faith, and direct intercourse with
   Christ and the gospel, in opposition to an external system of churchly
   and priestly mediation and human merit. The papal opponents felt the
   logical drift of the Theses much better than Luther, and saw in them an
   attempt to undermine the whole fabric of popery. . The irresistible
   progress of the Reformation soon swept the indulgences away as an
   unscriptural, mediaeval tradition of men. [189]

   The first Thesis strikes the keynote: "Our Lord and Master when he
   says, 'Repent,' [190] desires that the whole life of believers should
   be a repentance." [191] The corresponding Greek noun means change of
   mind (metavnoia), and implies both a turning away from sin in sincere
   sorrow and grief, and a turning to God in hearty faith. Luther
   distinguishes, in the second Thesis, true repentance from the
   sacramental penance (i.e., the confession and satisfaction required by
   the priest), and understands it to be an internal state and exercise of
   the mind rather than isolated external acts; although he expressly
   affirms, in the third Thesis, that it must manifest itself in various
   mortifications of the flesh. Repentance is a continual conflict of the
   believing spirit with the sinful flesh, a daily renewal of the heart.
   As long as sin lasts, there is need of repentance. The Pope can not
   remit any sin except by declaring the remission of God; and he can not
   remit punishments except those which he or the canons impose (Thes.5
   and 6). Forgiveness presupposes true repentance, and can only be found
   in the merits of Christ. Here comes in the other fundamental Thesis
   (62): The true treasury of the church is the holy gospel of the glory
   and the grace of God." This sets aside the mediaeval notion about the
   overflowing treasury of extra-merits and rewards at the disposal of the
   Pope for the benefit of the living and the dead.

   We have thus set before us in this manifesto, on the one hand, human
   depravity which requires lifelong repentance, and on the other the full
   and free grace of God in Christ, which can only be appropriated by a
   living faith. This is, in substance, the evangelical doctrine of
   justification by faith (although not expressed in terms), and virtually
   destroys the whole scholastic theory and practice of indulgences. By
   attacking the abuses of indulgences, Luther unwittingly cut a vein of
   mediaeval Catholicism; and by a deeper conception of repentance which
   implies faith, and by referring the sinner to the grace of Christ as
   the true and only source of remission, he proclaimed the undeveloped
   principles of evangelical Protestantism, and kindled a flame which soon
   extended far beyond his original intentions.

   NOTES.

   THE NINETY-FIVE THESES.

   DISPUTATION OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER CONCERNING PENITENCE AND INDULGENCES.

   In the desire and with the purpose of elucidating the truth, a
   disputation will be held on the underwritten propositions at
   Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther,
   Monk of the Order of St. Augustin, Master of Arts and of Sacred
   Theology, and ordinary Reader of the same in that place. [192] He
   therefore asks those who cannot be present, and discuss the subject
   with us orally, to do so by letter in their absence. In the name of our
   Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

   1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ in saying: "Repent ye" [lit.: Do
   penance, poenitentiam agite], etc., intended that the whole life of
   believers should be penitence [poenitentiam]. [193]

   2. This word poenitentia cannot be understood of sacramental penance,
   that is, of the confession and satisfaction which are performed under
   the ministry of priests.

   3. It does not, however, refer solely to inward penitence; nay, such
   inward penitence is naught, unless it outwardly produces various
   mortifications of the flesh [varias carnis mortificationes].

   4. The penalty [poena] thus continues as long as the hatred of
   self--that is, true inward penitence [poenitentia vera
   intus]--continues; namely, till our entrance into the kingdom of
   heaven.

   5. The Pope has neither the will nor the power to remit any penalties,
   except those which he has imposed by his own authority, or by that of
   the canons. [194]

   6. The Pope has no power to remit any guilt, except by declaring and
   warranting it to have been remitted by God; or at most by remitting
   cases reserved for himself: in which cases, if his power were despised,
   guilt would certainly remain.

   7. God never remits any man's guilt, without at the same time
   subjecting him, humbled in all things, to the authority of his
   representative the priest [sacernoti suo vicario].

   8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and no burden
   ought to be imposed on the dying, according to them.

   9. Hence the Holy Spirit acting in the Pope does well for us in that,
   in his decrees, he always makes exception of the article of death and
   of necessity.

   10. Those priests act unlearnedly and wrongly, who, in the case of the
   dying, reserve the canonical penances for purgatory.

   11. Those tares about changing of the canonical penalty into the
   penalty of purgatory seem surely to have been sown while the bishops
   were asleep.

   12. Formerly the canonical penalties were imposed not after, but before
   absolution, as tests of true contrition.

   13. The dying pay all penalties by death, and are already dead to the
   Canon laws, and are by right relieved from them.

   14. The imperfect soundness or charity of a dying person necessarily
   brings with it great fear, and the less it is, the greater the fear it
   brings.

   15. This fear and horror is sufficient by itself, to say nothing of
   other things, to constitute the pains of purgatory, since it is very
   near to the horror of despair.

   16. Hell, purgatory, and heaven appear to differ as despair, almost
   despair, and peace of mind [securitas] differ.

   17. With souls in purgatory it seems that it must needs be that, as
   horror diminishes, so charity increases.

   18. Nor does it seem to be proved by any reasoning or any scriptures,
   that they are outside of the state of merit or the increase of charity.

   19. Nor does this appear to be proved, that they are sure and confident
   of their own blessedness, at least all of them, though we may be very
   sure of it.

   20. Therefore the Pope, when he speaks of the plenary remission of all
   penalties, does not mean simply of all, but only of those imposed by
   himself.

   21. Thus those preachers of indulgences are in error who say that, by
   the indulgences of the Pope, a man is loosed and saved from all
   punishment.

   22. For, in fact, he remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which they
   would have had to pay in this life according to the canons.

   23. If any entire remission of all the penalties can be granted to any
   one, it is certain that it is granted to none but the most perfect,
   that is, to very few.

   24. Hence the greater part of the people must needs be deceived by this
   indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalties.

   25. Such power as the Pope has over purgatory in general, such has
   every bishop in his own diocese, and every curate in his own parish, in
   particular.

   26. [In the Latin text, I.] The Pope acts most rightly in granting
   remission to souls, not by the power of the keys (which is of no avail
   in this case), but by the way of suffrage [per modum suffragii].

   27. They preach man, who say that the soul flies out of purgatory as
   soon as the money thrown into the chest rattles [ut jactus nummus in
   cistam tinnierit].

   28. It is certain, that, when the money rattles in the chest, avarice
   and gain may be increased, but the suffrage of the Church depends on
   the will of God alone.

   29. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory desire to be redeemed
   from it, according to the story told of Saints Severinus and Paschal?
   [195]

   30. No man is sure of the reality of his own contrition, much less of
   the attainment of plenary remission.

   31. Rare as is a true penitent, so rare is one who truly buys
   indulgences--that is to say, most rare.

   32. Those who believe that, through letters of pardon, they are made
   sure of their own salvation, will be eternally damned along with their
   teachers.

   33. We must especially beware of those who say that these pardons from
   the Pope are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to
   God.

   34. For the grace conveyed by these pardons has respect only to the
   penalties of sacramental satisfaction, which are of human appointment.

   35. They preach no Christian doctrine, who teach that contrition is not
   necessary for those who buy souls out of purgatory, or buy confessional
   licenses.

   36. Every Christian who feels true compunction has of right plenary
   remission of pain and guilt, even without letters of pardon.

   37. Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has a share in all
   the benefits of Christ and of the Church, given him by God, even
   without letters of pardon.

   38. The remission, however, imparted by the Pope, is by no means to be
   despised, since it is, as I have said, a declaration of the Divine
   remission.

   39. It is a most difficult thing, even for the most learned
   theologians, to exalt at the same time in the eyes of the people the
   ample effect of pardons, and the necessity of true contrition.

   40. True contrition seeks and loves punishment; while the ampleness of
   pardons relaxes it, and causes men to hate it, or at least gives
   occasion for them to do so.

   41. Apostolical pardons ought to be proclaimed with caution, lest the
   people should falsely suppose that they are placed before other good
   works of charity.

   42. Christians should be taught that it is not the mind of the Pope,
   that the buying of pardons is to be in any way compared to works of
   mercy.

   43. Christians should be taught, that he who gives to a poor man, or
   lends to a needy man, does better than if he bought pardons.

   44. Because, by a work of charity, charity increases, and the man
   becomes better; while, by means of pardons, he does not become better,
   but only freer from punishment.

   45. Christians should be taught that he who sees any one in need, and,
   passing him by, gives money for pardons, is not purchasing for himself
   the indulgence of the Pope, but the anger of God.

   46. Christians should be taught, that, unless they have superfluous
   wealth, they are bound to keep what is necessary for the use of their
   own households, and by no means to lavish it on pardons.

   47. Christians should be taught, that, while they are free to buy
   pardons, they are not commanded to do so.

   48. Christians should be taught that the Pope, in granting pardons, has
   both more need and more desire that devout prayer should be made for
   him, than that money should be readily paid.

   49. Christians should be taught that the Pope's pardons are useful if
   they do not put their trust in them, but most hurtful if through them
   they lose the fear of God.

   50. [Lat. text XXV.] Christians should be taught, that, if the Pope
   were acquainted with the exactions of the preachers of pardons, he
   would prefer that the Basilica of St. Peter should be burnt to ashes,
   than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his
   sheep.

   51. [I.] Christians should be taught, that as it would be the wish of
   the Pope, even to sell, if necessary, the Basilica of St. Peter, and to
   give of his own to very many of those from whom the preachers of
   pardons extract money.

   52. Vain is the hope of salvation through letters of pardon, even if a
   commissary--nay, the Pope himself--were to pledge his own soul for
   them.

   53. They are enemies of Christ and of the Pope, who, in order that
   pardons may be preached, condemn the word of God to utter silence in
   other churches.

   54. Wrong is done to the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal
   or longer time is spent on pardons than on the words of the gospel
   [verbis evangelicis].

   55. The mind of the Pope necessarily is that if pardons, which are a
   very small matter [quod minimum est], are celebrated with single bells,
   single processions, and single ceremonies, the gospel, which is a very
   great matter [quod maximum est], should be preached with a hundred
   ceremonies.

   56. The treasures of the Church, whence the Pope grants indulgences,
   are neither sufficiently named nor known among the people of Christ.
   [196]

   57. It is clear that they are at least not temporal treasures; for
   these are not so readily lavished, but only accumulated, by many of the
   preachers.

   58. Nor are they the merits of Christ and of the saints; for these,
   independently of the Pope, are always working grace to the inner man,
   and the cross, death, and hell to the outer man.

   59. St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church are the poor of
   the Church, but he spoke according to the use of the word in his time.

   60. We are not speaking rashly when we say that the keys of the Church,
   bestowed through the merits of Christ, are that treasure.

   61. For it is clear that the power of the Pope is alone sufficient for
   the remission of penalties and of reserved cases.

   62. The true treasure of the Church is the holy gospel of the glory and
   the grace of God [Verus thesaurus ecclesiae est sacrosanctum Evangelium
   gloriae et gratiae Dei].

   63. This treasure, however, is deservedly most hateful [merito
   odiosissimus; der allerfeindseligste und verhassteste], because it
   makes the first to be last.

   64. While the treasure of indulgences is deservedly most acceptable,
   because it makes the last to be first.

   65. Hence the treasures of the gospel are nets, wherewith of old they
   fished for the men of riches.

   66. The treasures of indulgences are nets, wherewith they now fish for
   the riches of men.

   67. Those indulgences, which the preachers loudly proclaim to be the
   greatest graces, are seen to be truly such as regards the promotion of
   gain [denn es grossen Gewinnst und Geniess trägt].

   68. Yet they are in reality the smallest graces when compared with the
   grace of God and the piety of the cross.

   69. Bishops and curates are bound to receive the commissaries of
   apostolical pardons with all reverence.

   70. But they are still more bound to see to it with all their eyes, and
   take heed with all their ears, that these men do not preach their own
   dreams in place of the Pope's commission.

   71. He who speaks against the truth of apostolical pardons, let him be
   the anathema and accursed (sit anathema et maledictus; der sei ein
   Fluch und vermaladeiet].

   72. But he, on the other hand, who exerts himself against the
   wantonness and license of speech of the preachers of pardons, let him
   be blessed.

   73. As the Pope justly thunders [Lat., fulminat; G. trs., mit Ungnade
   und dem Bann schlägt] against those who use any kind of contrivance to
   the injury of the traffic in pardons;

   74. Much more is it his intention to thunder against those who, under
   the pretext of pardons, use contrivances to the injury of holy charity
   and of truth.

   75. [XXV.] To think that papal pardons have such power that they could
   absolve a man even if--by an impossibility--he had violated the Mother
   of God, is madness.

   76. [I.] We affirm, on the contrary, that papal pardons [veniae
   papales] can not take away even the least venial sins, as regards the
   guilt [quoad culpam].

   77. The saying that, even if St. Peter were now Pope, he could grant no
   greater graces, is blasphemy against St. Peter and the Pope.

   78. We affirm, on the contrary, that both he and any other Pope has
   greater graces to grant; namely, the gospel, powers, gifts of healing,
   etc. (1 Cor. xii. 9).

   69. To say that the cross set up among the insignia of the papal arms
   is of equal power with the cross of Christ, is blasphemy.

   80. Those bishops, curates, and theologians who allow such discourses
   to have currency among the people, will have to render an account.

   81. This license in the preaching of pardons makes it no easy thing,
   even for learned men, to protect the reverence due to the Pope against
   the calumnies, or, at all events, the keen questionings, of the laity;

   82. As, for instance: Why does not the Pope empty purgatory for the
   sake of most holy charity and of the supreme necessity of souls,--this
   being the most just of all reasons,--if he redeems an infinite number
   of souls for the sake of that most fatal thing, money, to be spent on
   building a basilica--this being a slight reason?

   83. Again: Why do funeral masses and anniversary masses for deceased
   continue, and why does not the Pope return, or permit the withdrawal
   of, the funds bequeathed for this purpose, since it is a wrong to pray
   for those who are already redeemed?

   84. Again: What is this new kindness of God and the Pope, in that, for
   money's sake, they permit an impious man and an enemy of God to redeem
   a pious soul which loves God, and yet do not redeem that same pious and
   beloved soul, out of free charity, on account of its own need?

   85. Again: Why is it that the penitential canons, long since abrogated
   and dead in themselves in very fact, and not only by usage, are yet
   still redeemed with money, through the granting of indulgences, as if
   they were full of life?

   86. Again: Why does not the Pope, whose riches are at this day more
   ample than those of the wealthiest of the wealthy, build the one
   Basilica of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with that of poor
   believers?

   87. Again: Why does the Pope remit or impart to those who, through
   perfect contrition, have a right to plenary remission and
   participation?

   88. Again: What greater good would the Church receive if the Pope,
   instead of once as he does now, were to bestow these remissions and
   participations a hundred times a day on any one of the faithful?

   89. Since it is the salvation of souls, rather than money, that the
   Pope seeks by his pardons, why does he annul the letters and pardons
   granted long ago, since they are equally efficacious?

   90. To repress these scruples and arguments of the laity by force
   alone, and not to solve them by giving reasons, is to expose the Church
   and the Pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and to make Christian
   men unhappy.

   91. If, then, pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of
   the Pope, all these questions would be resolved with ease; nay, would
   not exist.

   92. Away then with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ,
   "Peace, peace," and there is no peace.

   93. Blessed be all those prophets, who say to the people of Christ,
   "The cross, the cross," and there is no cross.

   94. Christians should be exhorted to strive to follow Christ their head
   through pains, deaths, and hells;

   95. [Lat. Text, XX.] And thus trust to enter heaven through many
   tribulations, rather than in the security of peace [per securitatem
   pacis].

   PROTESTATION.

   I, Martin Luther, Doctor, of the Order of Monks at Wittenberg, desire
   to testify publicly that certain propositions against pontifical
   indulgences, as they call them, have been put forth by me. Now
   although, up to the present time, neither this most celebrated and
   renowned school of ours nor any civil or ecclesiastical power has
   condemned me, yet there are, as I hear, some men of headlong and
   audacious spirit, who dare to pronounce me a heretic, as though the
   matter had been thoroughly looked into and studied. But on my part, as
   I have often done before, so now too I implore all men, by the faith of
   Christ, either to point out to me a better way, if such a way has been
   divinely revealed to any, or at least to submit their opinion to the
   judgment of God and of the Church. For I am neither so rash as to wish
   that my sole opinion should be preferred to that of all other men, nor
   so senseless as to be willing that the word of God should be made to
   give place to fables devised by human reason.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [187] The wooden doors of the Schlosskirche were burnt in 1760, and
   replaced in 1858 by metal doors, bearing, the original Latin text of
   the Theses. The new doors are the gift of King Frederick William IV.,
   who fully sympathized with the evangelical Reformation. Above the
   doors, on a golden ground, is the Crucified, with Luther and
   Melanchthon at his feet, the work of Professor von Klöber. In the
   interior of the church are the graves of Luther and Melanchthon, and of
   the Electors Frederick the Wise and John the Constant. The
   Schlosskirche was in a very dilapidated condition, and undergoing
   thorough repair, when I last visited it in July, 1886. It must not be
   confounded with the Stadtkirche of Wittenberg, where Luther preached so
   often, and where, in 1522, the communion was, for the first time,
   administered in both kinds.

   [188] Knaake (Weim. ed. I. 230) conjectures that the Theses, as
   affixed, were written either by Luther himself or some other hand, and
   that he had soon afterwards a few copies printed for his own use (for
   Agricola, who was in Wittenberg at that time, speaks of a copy printed
   on a half-sheet of paper): but that irresponsible publishers soon
   seized and multiplied them against his will. Jürgens says (III. 480)
   that two editions were printed in Wittenberg in 1517, on four quarto
   leaves, and that the Berlin Library possesses two copies of the second
   edition. The Theses were written on two columns, in four divisions; the
   first three divisions consisted of twenty-five theses each, the fourth
   of twenty. The German translation is from Justus Jonas. The Latin text
   is printed in all the editions of Luther's works, in Löscher's Acts,
   and in Ranke's Deutsche Geschichte (6th ed., vol. VI. 83-89, literally
   copied from an original preserved in the Royal Library in Berlin). The
   semi-authoritative German translation by Justus Jonas is given in
   Löscher, Walch (vol. XVIII.), and O. v. Gerlach (vol. I.), and with a
   commentary by Jürgens (Luther, III. 484 sqq.). An English translation
   in Wace and Buchheim, Principles of the Reformation, London, 1883, p. 6
   sqq. I have compared this translation with the Latin original as given
   by Ranke, and in the Weimar edition, and added it at the end of this
   section with some alterations, insertions, and notes.

   [189] Jürgens (III. 481) compares the Theses to flashes of lightning,
   which suddenly issued from the thunder-clouds. Hundeshagen (in Piper's
   "Evangel. Kalender" for 1859, p. 157), says: "Notwithstanding the
   limits within which Luther kept himself at that time, the Theses
   express in many respects the whole Luther of later times: the frankness
   and honesty of his soul, his earnest zeal for practical Christianity,
   the sincere devotion to the truths of the Scriptures, the open sense
   for the religious wants of the people, the sound insight into the
   abuses and corruptions of the church, the profound yet liberal piety."
   Ranke's judgment of the Theses is brief, but pointed and weighty: "Wenn
   man diese Sätze liest, sieht man, welch ein kühner, grossartiger und
   fester Geist in Luther arbeitet. Die Gedanken sprühen ihm hervor, wie
   unter dem Hammerschlag die Funken."--Deutsche Gesch., vol. I. p. 210.

   [190] Luther gives the Vulgate rendering of metanoeite, poenitentiam
   agite, do penance, which favors the Roman Catholic conception that
   repentance consists in certain outward acts. He first learned the true
   meaning of the Greek metanoia a year later from Melanchthon, and it was
   to him like a revelation.

   [191] "Dominus et magister noster Jesus Christus dicendo 'Poenitentiam
   agite,' etc. [Matt. 4:17), omnem vitam fidelium poenitentiam esse
   voluit." In characteristic contrast, Tetzel begins his fifty counter
   Theses with a glorification of the Pope as the supreme power in the
   church: "Docendi sunt Christiani, ex quo in Ecclesia potestas Papae est
   suprema et a solo Deo instituta, quod a nullo puro homine, nec a toto
   simul mundo potest restringi aut ampliari, sed a solo Deo."

   [192] The German translation inserts here the name of Tetzel (wider
   Bruder Johann Tetzel, Prediger Ordens), which does not occur in the
   Latin text.

   [193] The first four theses are directed against the scholastic view of
   sacramental penitence, which emphasized isolated, outward acts; while
   Luther put the stress on the inward change which should extend through
   life. As long as there is sin, so long is there need of repentance. St.
   Augustin and St. Bernard spent their last days in deep repentance and
   meditatation over the penitential Psalms. Luther retained the Vulgate
   rendering, and did not know yet the true meaning of the Greek original
   (matanoia, change of mind, conversion). The Theses vacillate between
   the Romish and the Evangelical view of repentance.

   [194] This thesis reduces the indulgence to a mere remission of the
   ecclesiastical punishments which refer only to this life. It destroys
   the effect on purgatory. Compare Thesis 8.

   [195] These saints were reported to have preferred to suffer longer in
   purgatory than was necessary for their salvation, in order that they
   might attain to the highest glory of the vision of God.

   [196] This and the following theses destroy the theoretical foundation
   of indulgences, namely, the scholastic fiction of a treasury of
   supererogatory merits of saints at the disposal of the Pope.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 33. The Theses-Controversy. 1518.

   Luther's Sermon vom Ablass und Gnade, printed in February, 1518 (Weimar
   ed. I. 239-246; and in Latin, 317-324); Kurze Erklärung der Zehn
   Gebote, 1518 (I. 248-256, in Latin under the title Instructio pro
   Confessione peccatorum, p. 257-265); Asterisci adversus Obeliscos
   Eckii, March, 1518 (I. 278-316); Freiheit des Sermons päpstlichen
   Ablass und Gnade belangend, June, 1518, against Tetzel (I. 380-393);
   Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute, August, 1518,
   dedicated to the Pope (I. 522-628). Letters of Luther to Archbishop
   Albrecht, Spalatin, and others, in De Wette, I. 67 sqq.

   Tetzel's Anti-Theses, 2 series, one of 106, the other of 50 sentences,
   are printed in Löscher's Ref. Acta, I. 505-514, and 518-523. Eck's
   Obelisci, ibid. III. 333.

   On the details of the controversy, see Jürgens (III. 479 sqq.), Köstlin
   (I. 175 sqq.), Kolde (I. 126 sqq.), Bratke, and Dieckhoff, as quoted in
   § 31.

   The Theses of Luther were a tract for the times. They sounded the
   trumpet of the Reformation. They found a hearty response with liberal
   scholars and enemies of monastic obscurantism, with German patriots
   longing for emancipation from Italian control, and with thousands of
   plain Christians waiting for the man of Providence who should give
   utterance to their feelings of indignation against existing abuses, and
   to their desire for a pure, scriptural, and spiritual religion. "Ho,
   ho! "exclaimed Dr. Fleck, "the man has come who will do the thing."
   Reuchlin thanked God that "the monks have now found a man who will give
   them such full employment that they will be glad to let me spend my old
   age in peace." [197]

   But, on the other hand, the Theses were strongly assailed and condemned
   by the episcopal and clerical hierarchy, the monastic orders,
   especially the Dominicans, and the universities, in fact, by all the
   champions of scholastic theology and traditional orthodoxy. Luther
   himself, then a poor, emaciated monk, was at first frightened by the
   unexpected effect, and many of his friends trembled. One of them told
   him, "You tell the truth, good brother, but you will accomplish
   nothing; go to your cell, and say, God have mercy upon me." [198]

   The chief writers against Luther were Tetzel of Leipzig, Conrad Wimpina
   of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, and the more learned and formidable John Eck
   of Ingolstadt, who was at first a friend of Luther, but now became his
   irreconcilable enemy. These opponents represented three universities
   and the ruling scholastic theology of the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas
   Aquinas. But they injured their cause in public estimation by the
   weakness of their defence. They could produce no arguments for the
   doctrine and practice of indulgences from the Word of God, or even from
   the Greek and Latin fathers, and had to resort to extravagant views on
   the authority of the Pope. They even advocated papal infallibility,
   although this was as yet an open question in the Roman Church, and
   remained so till the Vatican decree of 1870.

   Luther mustered courage. In all his weakness he was strong. He felt
   that he had begun this business in the name and for the glory of God,
   and was ready to sacrifice life itself for his honest conviction. He
   took comfort from the counsel of Gamaliel. In several letters of this
   period he subscribed himself Martinus Eleutherios (Freeman), but added,
   vielmehr Knecht (rather, Servant): he felt free of men, but bound in
   Christ. When his friend Schurf told him, "They will not bear it;" he
   replied, "But what, if they have to bear it?" He answered all his
   opponents, directly and indirectly, in Latin and German, from the
   pulpit and the chair, and through the press. He began now to develop
   his formidable polemical power, especially in his German writings. He
   had full command over the vocabulary of common sense, wit, irony,
   vituperation, and abuse. Unfortunately, he often resorted to coarse and
   vulgar expressions which, even in that semi-barbarous age, offended men
   of culture and taste, and which set a bad example for his admirers in
   the fierce theological wars within the Lutheran Church. [199]

   The discussion forced him into a conflict with the papal authority, on
   which the theory and traffic of indulgences were ultimately made to
   rest. The controversy resolved itself into the question whether that
   authority was infallible and final, or subject to correction by the
   Scriptures and a general Council. Luther defended the latter view; yet
   he protested that he was no heretic, and that he taught nothing
   contrary to the Scriptures, the ancient fathers, the oecumenical
   Councils, and the decrees of the Popes. He still hoped for a favorable
   hearing from Leo X., whom he personally respected. He even ventured to
   dedicate to him his Resolutiones, a defence of the Theses (May 30,
   1518), with a letter of abject humility, promising to obey his voice as
   the very voice of Christ. [200]

   Such an anomalous and contradictory position could not last long.

   In the midst of this controversy, in April, 1518, Luther was sent as a
   delegate to a meeting of the Augustinian monks at Heidelberg, and had
   an opportunity to defend, in public debate, forty conclusions, or,
   "theological paradoxes," drawn from St. Paul and St. Augustin,
   concerning natural depravity, the slavery of the will, regenerating
   grace, faith, and good works. He advocates the theologia crucis against
   the theologia gloriae, and contrasts the law and the gospel. "The law
   says, 'Do this,'  and never does it: the gospel says, 'Believe in
   Christ,' and all is done." The last twelve theses are directed against
   the Aristotelian philosophy. [201]

   He found considerable response, and sowed the seed of the Reformation
   in the Palatinate. Among his youthful hearers were Bucer (Butzer) and
   Brentz, who afterwards became distinguished reformers, the one in
   Strassburg and England, the other in the duchy (now kingdom) of
   Würtemberg.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [197] The prophetic dream of the Elector, so often told, is a poetic
   fiction. Köstlin discredits it, I. 786 sq. The Elector Frederick
   dreamed, in the night before Luther affixed the Theses, that God sent
   him a monk, a true son of the Apostle Paul, and that this monk wrote
   something on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg with a pen
   which reached even to Rome, pierced the head and ears of a lion (Leo),
   and shook the triple crown of the Pope. Merle d'Aubigné relates the
   dream at great length as being, "beyond reasonable doubt, true in the
   essential parts." He appeals to an original MS., written from the
   dictation of Spalatin, in the archives of Weimar, which was published
   in 1817. But that MS., according to the testimony of Dr. Burkhardt, the
   librarian, is only a copy of the eighteenth century. No trace of such a
   dream can be found before 1591. Spalatin, in his own writings and his
   letters to Luther and Melanchthon, nowhere refers to it.

   [198] Albert Krantz of Hamburg, who died Dec. 7, 1517. Köstlin, I. 177.

   [199] He said of Tetzel, that he dealt with the Bible "wie die Sau mit
   dem Habersack" (as the hog with the meal-bag); of the learned Cardinal
   Cajetan, that he knew as little of spiritual theology as "the donkey of
   the harp;" he called Alveld, professor of theology at Leipzig, "a most
   asinine ass," and Dr. Eck "Dreck:" for which he was in turn styled
   luteus, lutra, etc. Such vulgarities were common in that age, but
   Luther was the roughest of the rough, as he was the strongest of the
   strong. His bark, however, was much worse than his bite, and beneath
   his abusive tongue and temper dwelt a kind and generous heart. His most
   violent writings are those against Emser (An den Emserschen Steinbock),
   King Henry VIII., Duke Henry of Brunswick (Wider Hans Wurst), and his
   last attack upon popery as "instituted by the Devil" (1545), of which
   Döllinger says (Luther, p. 48), that it must have been written "im
   Zustande der Erhitzung durch berauschende Getränke."

   [200] "Beatissime Pater," he says in the dedication, "prostratum me
   pedibus tuae Beatitudinis offero cum omnibus, quae sum et habeo.
   Vivifica, occide, roca, revoca, approba, reproba, ut placuerit: vocem
   tuam vocem Christi in te praesidentis et loquentis agnoscam. Si mortem
   merui, mori non recusabo. Dominienim est terra et plenitudo ejus, qui
   est benedictus in saecula, Amen, qui et te servet in aceternum, Amen.
   Anno MDXVIII."Works (Weimar ed.), I. 529; also in De Wette, Briefe, I.
   119-122.

   [201] Weim. ed., I. 350-376. Comp. Köstlin, I. 185 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 34. Rome's Interposition. Luther and Prierias. 1518.

   R. P. Silvestri Prieratis ordinis praedicatorum et s. theol.
   professoris celeberrimi, s. palatii apostolici magistri, in
   praesumptuosas Martini Lutheri conclusiones de potestate papae
   dialogus. In Löscher, II. 13-39. Knaake (Werke, I. 644) assigns the
   first edition to the second half of June, 1518, which is more likely
   than the earlier date of December, 1517, given by Löscher (II. 12) and
   the Erlangen ed. He mentions five separate editions, two of which were
   published by Luther without notes; afterwards he published an edition
   with his refutation.

   Ad Dialogum Silvestri Prierati de potestate papae responsio. In
   Löscher, II. 3; Weim. ed. I., 647-686, II. 48-56. German translation in
   Walch, XVIII. l20-200.

   Pope Leo X. was disposed to ignore the Wittenberg movement as a
   contemptible monkish quarrel; but when it threatened to become
   dangerous, he tried to make the German monk harmless by the exercise of
   his power. He is reported to have said first, "Brother Martin is a man
   of fine genius, and this outbreak is a mere squabble of envious monks;"
   but afterwards, "It is a drunken German who wrote the Theses; when
   sober he will change his mind."

   Three months after the appearance of the Theses, he directed the
   vicar-general of the Augustinian Order to quiet down the restless monk.
   In March, 1518, he found it necessary to appoint a commission of
   inquiry under the direction of the learned Dominican Silvester
   Mazzolini, called from his birthplace Prierio or Prierias (also
   Prieras), who was master of the sacred palace and professor of
   theology.

   Prierias came to the conclusion that Luther was an ignorant and
   blasphemous arch-heretic, and hastily wrote a Latin dialogue against
   his Theses, hoping to crush him by subtile scholastic distinctions, and
   the weight of papal authority (June, 1518). He identified the Pope with
   the Church of Rome, and the Church of Rome with the Church universal,
   and denounced every departure from it as a heresy. He said of Luther's
   Theses, that they bite like a cur.

   Luther republished the Dialogue with a reply, in which he called it
   "sufficiently supercilious, and thoroughly Italian and Thomistic
   "(August, 1518).

   Prierias answered with a Replica (November, 1518). Luther republished
   it likewise, with a brief preface, and sent it to Prierias with the
   advice not to make himself any more ridiculous by writing books.

   The effect of this controversy was to widen the breach.

   In the mean time Luther's fate had already been decided. The Roman
   hierarchy could no more tolerate such a dangerous man than the Jewish
   hierarchy could tolerate Christ and the apostles. On the 7th of August,
   1518, he was cited to appear in Rome within sixty days to recant his
   heresies. On the 23d of the same month, the Pope demanded of the
   Elector Frederick the Wise, that he should deliver up this "child of
   the Devil" to the papal legate.

   But the Elector, who was one of the most powerful and esteemed princes
   of Germany, felt unwilling to sacrifice the shining light of his
   beloved university, and arranged a peaceful interview with the papal
   legate at the Diet of Augsburg on promise of kind treatment and safe
   return.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 35. Luther and Cajetan. October, 1518.

   The transactions at Augsburg were published by Luther in December,
   1518, and are printed in Löscher, II. 435-492; 527-551; in Walch, XV.
   636 sqq.; in the Weim. ed., II. 1-40. Luther's Letters in De Wette, I.
   147-167. Comp. Kahnis, I. 215-235; Köstlin, I. 204-238 (and his shorter
   biogr., Eng. trans., p. 108).

   Luther accordingly proceeded to Augsburg in humble garb, and on foot,
   till illness forced him within a short distance from the city to take a
   carriage. He was accompanied by a young monk and pupil, Leonard Baier,
   and his friend Link. He arrived Oct. 7, 1518, and was kindly received
   by Dr. Conrad Peutinger and two counselors of the Elector, who advised
   him to behave with prudence, and to observe the customary rules of
   etiquette. Everybody was anxious to see the man who, like a second
   Herostratus, had kindled such a flame.

   On Oct. 11, he received the letter of safe-conduct; and on the next day
   he appeared before the papal legate, Cardinal Cajetan (Thomas de Vio of
   Gaëta), who represented the Pope at the German Diet, and was to obtain
   its consent to the imposition of a heavy tax for the war against the
   Turks.

   Cajetan was, like Prierias, a Dominican and zealous Thomist, a man of
   great learning and moral integrity, but fond of pomp and ostentation.
   He wrote a standard commentary on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas (which is
   frequently appended to the Summa); but in his later years, till his
   death (1534),--perhaps in consequence of his interview with Luther,--he
   devoted himself chiefly to the study of the Scriptures, and urged it
   upon his friends. He labored with the aid of Hebrew and Greek scholars
   to correct the Vulgate by a more faithful version, and advocated
   Jerome's liberal views on questions of criticism and the Canon, and a
   sober grammatical exegesis against allegorical fancies, without,
   however, surrendering the Catholic principle of tradition.

   There was a great contrast between the Italian cardinal and the German
   monk, the shrewd diplomat and the frank scholar; the expounder and
   defender of mediaeval scholasticism, and the champion of modern
   biblical theology; the man of church authority, and the advocate of
   personal freedom.

   They had three interviews (Oct. 12, 13, 14). Cajetan treated Luther
   with condescending courtesy, and assured him of his friendship. [202]
   But he demanded retraction of his errors, and absolute submission to
   the Pope. Luther resolutely refused, and declared that he could do
   nothing against his conscience ; that one must obey God rather than man
   ; that he had the Scripture on his side; that even Peter was once
   reproved by Paul for misconduct (Gal. 2:11), and that surely his
   successor was not infallible. Still be asked the cardinal to intercede
   with Leo X., that he might not harshly condemn him. Cajetan threatened
   him with excommunication, having already the papal mandate in his hand,
   and dismissed him with the words: "Revoke, or do not come again into my
   presence." He urged Staupitz to do his best to convert Luther, and said
   he was unwilling to dispute any further with that deep-eyed German
   beast filled with strange speculations." [203]

   Under these circumstances, Luther, with the aid of friends who provided
   him with an escort, made his escape from Augsburg, through a small gate
   in the city-Wall, in the night of the 20th of October, on a
   hard-trotting hack, without pantaloons, boots, or spurs. He rode on the
   first day as far as the town of Monheim [204] without stopping, and
   fell utterly exhausted upon the straw in a stable. [205]

   He reached Wittenberg, in good spirits, on the first anniversary of his
   Ninety-five Theses. He forthwith published a report of his conference
   with a justification of his conduct. He also wrote (Nov. 19) a long and
   very eloquent letter to the Elector, exposing the unfairness of
   Cajetan, who had misrepresented the proceedings, and demanded from the
   Elector the delivery of Luther to Rome or his expulsion from Saxony.

   Before leaving Augsburg, be left an appeal from Cajetan to the Pope,
   and "from the Pope ill informed to the Pope to be better informed "(a
   papa male informato ad papam melius informandum). Soon afterwards, Nov.
   28, he formally and solemnly appealed from the Pope to a general
   council, and thus anticipated the papal sentence of excommunication. He
   expected every day maledictions from Rome, and was prepared for exile
   or any other fate. [206] He was already tormented with the thought that
   the Pope might be the Anti-Christ spoken of by St. Paul in the Second
   Epistle to the Thessalonians, and asked his friend Link (Dec. 11) to
   give him his opinion on the subject. [207] Ultimately he lost faith
   also in a general council, and appealed solely to the Scriptures and
   his conscience. The Elector urged him to moderation through Spalatin,
   but Luther declared: "The more those Romish grandees rage, and meditate
   the use of force, the less do I fear them, and shall feel all the more
   free to fight against the serpents of Rome. I am prepared for all, and
   await the judgment of God."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [202] Luther received at first a favorable impression, and wrote in a
   letter to Carlstadt, Oct. 14 (De Wette, I. 161): "The cardinal calls me
   constantly his dear son, and assures Staupitz that I had no better
   friend than himself. ... I would be the most welcome person here if I
   but spoke this one word, revoco. But I will not turn a heretic by
   revoking the opinion which made me a Christian: I will rather die, be
   burnt, be exiled, be cursed." Afterwards he wrote in a different tone
   about Cajetan, e.g., in the letter to the Elector Frederick, Nov. 19
   (I. 175 sqq.), and to Staupitz, Dec. 13 (De Wette, I. 194).

   [203] "Ego nolo amplius cum hac bestia loqui. Habet enim profundos
   oculos et mirabiles speculationes in capite suo." This characteristic
   dictum is not reported by Luther, but by Myconius, Hist. Ref. p. 73.
   Comp. Löscher, II. 477. The national antipathy between the Germans and
   the Italians often appears in the transactions with Rome, and continues
   to this day. Monsignor Eugenio Cecconi, Archbishop of Florence, in his
   tract Martino Lutero, Firenze, 1883, says: "Lutero non amava gi'
   italiani, e gl' italiani non hanno mai avuto ne stima ne amore per
   quest' uomo. Il nostro popolo, col suo naturale criterio, lo ha
   giudicato da un pezzo." He declared the proposal to celebrate Luther's
   fourth centennial at Florence to be an act of insanity.

   [204] In Bavaria; not Mannheim, as Kahnis (I. 228) has it.

   [205] "Dr. Staupitz" (says Luther, In his Table-Talk) "hatte mir ein
   Pferd verschafft und gab mir den Rath, einen alten Ausreuter zu nehmen,
   der die Wege wüsste, und half mir Langemantel (Rathsherr) des Nachts
   durch ein klein Pförtlein der Stadt. Da eilte ich ohne Hosen, Stiefel,
   Sporn, und Schwert, und kam his gen Wittenberg. Den ersten Tag ritt ich
   acht (German) Meilen und wie ich des Abends in die Herberge kam, war
   ich so müde, stieg, im Stalle ab, konnte nicht stehen, fiel stracks in
   die Streu."

   [206] Letter to Spalatin, Nov. 25 and Dec. 2. De Wette, 1. 188 sqq.

   [207] "Mittam ad te nugas meas, ut videas, an recte divinem
   Antichristum illum verum juxta Paulum in Romana curia regnare: pejorem
   Turcis esse hodie, puto me demonstrare posse." DeWette, I. 193.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 36. Luther and Miltitz. January, 1519.

   Löscher, II. 552-569; III. 6-21, 820-847. Luther's Werke, Walch, XV.
   308 sqq.; Weimar ed., II. 66 sqq. Letters in De Wette: I. 207 sqq., 233
   sqq.

   Joh. K. Seidemann: Karl Von Miltitz .... Eine chronol. Untersuchung.
   Dresden, 1844 (pp. 37). The respective sections in Marheineke, Kahnis
   (I. 235 sqq.), and Köstlin (I. 238 sqq. and 281 sqq.).

   Before the final decision, another attempt was made to silence Luther
   by inducing him to revoke his heresies. Diplomacy sometimes interrupts
   the natural development of principles and the irresistible logic of
   events, but only for a short season. It usually resorts to compromises
   which satisfy neither party, and are cast aside. Principles must work
   themselves out.

   Pope Leo sent his nuncio and chamberlain, Karl von Miltitz, a noble
   Saxon by birth, and a plausible, convivial gentleman, [208] to the
   Elector Frederick with the rare present of a golden rose, and
   authorized him to negotiate with Luther. He provided him with a number
   of the highest recommendations to civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries.

   Miltitz discovered on his journey a wide-spread and growing sympathy
   with Luther. He found three Germans on his side, especially in the
   North, to one against him. He heard bad reports about Tetzel, and
   summoned him; but Tetzel was afraid to travel, and died a few months
   afterwards (Aug. 7, 1519), partly, perhaps, in consequence of the
   severe censure from the papal delegate. Luther wrote to his opponent a
   letter of comfort, which is no more extant. Unmeasured as he could be
   in personal abuse, he harbored no malice or revenge in his heart. [209]

   Miltitz held a conference with Luther in the house of Spalatin at
   Altenburg, Jan. 6, 1519. He was exceedingly polite and friendly; he
   deplored the offence and scandal of the Theses-controversy, and threw a
   great part of the blame on poor Tetzel; he used all his powers of
   persuasion, and entreated him with tears not to divide the unity of the
   holy Catholic Church.

   They agreed that the matter should be settled by a German bishop
   instead of going to Rome, and that in the mean time both parties were
   to keep silence. Luther promised to ask the pardon of the Pope, and to
   warn the people against the sin of separating from the holy
   mother-church. After this agreement they partook of a social supper,
   and parted with a kiss. Miltitz must have felt very proud of his
   masterpiece of ecclesiastical diplomacy.

   Luther complied with his promises in a way which seems irreconcilable
   with his honest convictions and subse-quent conduct. But we must
   remember the deep conflicts of his mind, the awful responsibility of
   his undertaking, the critical character of the situation. Well might he
   pause for a while, and shrink back from the idea of a separation from
   the church of his fathers, so intimately connected with his religious
   life as well as with the whole history of Christianity for fifteen
   hundred years. He had to break a new path which became so easy for
   others. We must all the more admire his conscientiousness.

   In his letter to the Pope, dated March 3, 1519, he expressed the
   deepest personal humility, and denied that he ever intended to injure
   the Roman Church, which was over every other power in heaven and on
   earth, save only Jesus Christ the Lord over all. Yet he repudiated the
   idea of retracting his conscientious convictions.

   In his address to the people, he allowed the value of indulgences, but
   only as a recompense for the "satisfaction" given by, the sinner, and
   urged the duty of adhering, notwithstanding her faults and sins, to the
   holy Roman Church, where St. Peter and St. Paul, and many Popes and
   thousands of martyrs, had shed their blood.

   At the same time, Luther continued the careful study of history, and
   could find no trace of popery and its extraordinary claims in the first
   centuries before the Council of Nicaea. He discovered that the Papal
   Decretals, and the Donation of Constantine, were a forgery. He wrote to
   Spalatin, March 13, 1519, "I know not whether tho Pope is anti-christ
   himself, or his apostle; so wretchedly is Christ, that is the truth,
   corrupted and crucified by him in the Decretals." [210]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [208] He was charged with intemperance, and is reported to have fallen
   from the boat in crossing the Rhine or the Main near Mainz in a state
   of intoxication, a. 1529. See the reports in Seidemann, l.c. p. 33 sqq.

   [209] He speaks generously of Tetzel in a letter to Spalatin, Feb. 12,
   1519 (De Wette, I. 223): "Doleo Tetzelium et salutem suam in eam
   necessitatem venisse ... multo mallem, si posset, servari cum honore,"
   etc.

   [210] De Wette, I. 239.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 37. The Leipzig Disputation. June 27-July 15, 1519.

   I. Löscher, III. 203-819. Luther's Works, Walch, XV. 954 sqq.; Weim.
   ed. II. 153-435 (see the literary notices of Knaake, p. 156). Luther's
   letters to Spalatin and the Elector, in De Wette:, I. 284-324.

   II. Joh. K. Seidemann: Die Leipziger Disputation im Jahre 1519. Dresden
   and Leipzig, 1843 (pp. 161). With important documents (pp. 93 sqq.) The
   best book on the subject. Monographs on Carlstadt by Jäger (Stuttgart,
   1856), on Eck by Wiedemann (Regensburg, 1865), and the relevant
   sections in Marheineke, Kahnis (I. 251-285), Köstlin, Kolde, and the
   general histories of the Reformation. The account by Ranke (I. 277-285)
   is very good. On the Roman side, see Janssen, II. 83-88 (incomplete).

   The agreement between Miltitz and Luther was only a short truce. The
   Reformation was too deeply rooted in the wants of the age to be
   suppressed by the diplomacy of ecclesiastical politicians. Even if the
   movement had been arrested in one place, it would have broken out in
   another; indeed, it had already begun independently in Switzerland.
   Luther was no more his own master, but the organ of a higher power.
   "Man proposes, God disposes."

   Before the controversy could be settled by a German bishop, it was
   revived, not without a violation of promise on both sides, [211] in the
   disputation held in the large hall of the Castle of Pleissenburg at
   Leipzig, under the sanction of Duke George of Saxony, between Eck,
   Carlstadt, and Luther, on the doctrines of the papal primacy,
   free-will, good works, purgatory, and indulgences. It was one of the
   great intellectual battles; it lasted nearly three weeks, and excited
   universal attention in that deeply religious and theological age. The
   vital doctrines of salvation were at stake. The debate was in Latin,
   but Luther broke out occasionally in his more vigorous German.

   The disputation began with the solemnities of a mass, a procession, an
   oration of Peter Mosellanus, De ratione disputandi, and the singing of
   Veni, Creator Spiritus. It ended with a eulogistic oration by the
   Leipzig professor John Lange, and the Te Deum.

   The first act was the disputation between Eck and Carlstadt, on the
   freedom of the human will, which the former maintained, and the latter
   denied. The second and more important act began July 4, between Eck and
   Luther, chiefly on the subject of the papacy.

   Dr. Eck (Johann Mair), professor of theology at Ingolstadt in Bavaria,
   was the champion of Romanism, a man of great learning, well-stored
   memory, dialectical skill, ready speech, and stentorian voice, but
   overconfident, conceited, and boisterous. He looked more like a butcher
   or soldier than a theologian. Many regarded him as a mere charlatan,
   and expressed their contempt for his audacity and vanity by the
   nicknames Keck (pert) and Geck (fop), which date from this dispute.
   [212]

   Carlstadt (Andreas von Bodenstein), Luther's impetuous and ill-balanced
   friend and colleague, was an unfortunate debater. [213] He had a poor
   memory, depended on his notes, got embarrassed and confused, and
   furnished an easy victory to Eck. It was ominous, that, on entering
   Leipzig, his wagon broke down, and he fell into the mud.

   Luther was inferior to Eck in historical learning and flowing Latinity,
   but surpassed him in knowledge of the Bible, independent judgment,
   originality, and depth of thought, and had the law of progress on his
   side. While Eck looked to the fathers, Luther went back to the
   grandfathers; he ascended from the stream of church history to the
   fountain of God's Word; yet from the normative beginning of the
   apostolic age he looked hopefully into the future. Though pale and
   emaciated, he was cheerful, wore a little silver ring, and carried a
   bunch of flowers in his hand. Peter Mosellanus, a famous Latinist, who
   presided over the disputation, thus describes his personal appearance
   at that time: [214] --

   "Luther is of middle stature; his body thin, and so wasted by care and
   study that nearly all his bones may be counted. [215] He is in the
   prime of life. His voice is clear and melodious. His learning, and his
   knowledge of Scripture are so extraordinary that he has nearly every
   thing at his fingers' ends. Greek and Hebrew he understands
   sufficiently well to give his judgment on interpretations. For
   conversation, he has a rich store of subjects at his command; a vast
   forest (silva ingens) of thoughts and words is at his disposal. He is
   polite and clever. There is nothing stoical, nothing supercilious,
   about him; and he understands how to adapt himself to different persons
   and times. In society he is lively and agreeable. He is always fresh,
   cheerful, and at his ease, and has a pleasant countenance, however hard
   his enemies may threaten him, so that one cannot but believe that
   Heaven is with him in his great undertaking. [216] Most people,
   however, reproach him with want of moderation in polemics, and with
   being rather imprudent and more cutting than befits a theologian and a
   reformer."

   The chief interest in the disputation turned on the subject of the
   authority of the Pope and the infallibility of the Church. Eck
   maintained that the Pope is the successor of Peter, and the vicar of
   Christ by divine right; Luther, that this claim is contrary to the
   Scriptures, to the ancient church, to the Council of Nicaea,--the most
   sacred of all Councils,--and rests only on the frigid decrees of the
   Roman pontiffs.

   But during the debate he changed his opinion on the authority of
   Councils, and thereby injured his cause in the estimation of the
   audience. Being charged by Eck with holding the heresy of Hus, he at
   first repudiated him and all schismatic tendencies; but on mature
   reflection he declared that Hus held some scriptural truths, and was
   unjustly condemned and burnt by the Council of Constance; that a
   general council as well as a Pope may err, and had no right to impose
   any article of faith not founded in the Scriptures. When Duke George, a
   sturdy upholder of the Catholic creed, heard Luther express sympathy
   with the Bohemian heresy, he shook his head, and, putting both arms in
   his sides, exclaimed, so that it could be heard throughout the hall, "A
   plague upon it!" [217]

   From this time dates Luther's connection with the Bohemian Brethren.

   Luther concluded his argument with these words: "I am sorry that the
   learned doctor only dips into the Scripture as the water-spider into
   the water-nay, that he seems to flee from it as the Devil from the
   Cross. I prefer, with all deference to the Fathers, the authority of
   the Scripture, which I herewith recommend to the arbiters of our
   cause."

   Both parties, as usual, claimed the victory. Eck was rewarded with
   honors and favors by Duke George, and followed up his fancied triumph
   by efforts to ruin Luther, and to gain a cardinal's hat; but he was
   also severely attacked and ridiculed, especially by Willibald
   Pirkheimer, the famous humanist and patrician of Nürnberg, in his
   stinging satire, "The Polished Corner." [218] The theological faculties
   of Cologne, Louvain, and afterwards (1521) also that of Paris,
   condemned the Reformer.

   Luther himself was greatly dissatisfied, and regarded the disputation
   as a mere waste of time. He made, however, a deep impression upon
   younger men, and many students left Leipzig for Wittenberg. After all,
   he was more benefited by the disputation and the controversies growing
   out of it, than his opponents.

   The importance of this theological tournament lies in this: that it
   marks a progress in Luther's emancipation from the papal system. Here
   for the first time he denied the divine right and origin of the papacy,
   and the infallibility of a general council. Henceforward he had nothing
   left but the divine Scriptures, his private judgment, and his faith in
   God who guides the course of history by his own Spirit, through all
   obstructions by human errors, to a glorious end. The ship of the
   Reformation was cut from its moorings, and had to fight with the winds
   and waves of the open sea.

   From this time Luther entered upon a revolutionary crusade against the
   Roman Church until the anarchical dissensions in his own party drove
   him back into a conservative and even reactionary position.

   Before we proceed with the development of the Reformation, we must make
   the acquaintance of Melanchthon, who had accompanied Luther to the
   Leipzig disputation as a spectator, suggesting to him and Carlstadt
   occasional arguments, [219] and hereafter stood by him as his faithful
   colleague and friend.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [211] Eck was the chief originator of the disputation, and not Luther
   (as Janssen endeavors to show). Seidemann, who gives a full and
   authentic account of the preliminary correspondence, says (p. 21): "Es
   ist entschieden, dass Eck die Disputation antrug, und zwar zunächst nur
   mit Karlstadt. Aber auch Luther's Absehen war auf eine Disputation
   gerichtet."

   [212] As he complained twenty years later: see Seidemann, p. 80.

   [213] Luther calls him an infelicissimus disputator.

   [214] In a letter to Julius Pflug, a young Saxon nobleman. Mosellanus
   describes also Carlstadt and Eck, and the whole disputation. See
   Löscher, III. 242-251 (especially p. 247); Walch, XV. 1422; Seidemann,
   51 and 56. I find the description also in an appendix to Melanchthon's
   Vita Lutheri, Göttingen, 1741, pp. 32-44.

   [215] "Ut omnia pene ossa liceat dinumerare." But in later years Luther
   grew stout and fleshy.

   [216] "Ut haud facile credas, hominem tam ardua sine numine Divûm
   moliri."

   [217] "Das walt' die Sucht!"

   [218] "Der algehobelte Eck." The book appeared first anonymously in
   Latin, Eccius dedolatus, at Erfurt, March, 1520. Hagen, in his Der
   Geist der Reformation (Erlangen, 1843), I. p. 60 sqq., gives a good
   summary of this witty book. Luther sent it to Spalatin, March 2, 1520
   (De Wette, I. 426), but expressed his dissatisfaction with this "mode
   of raging against Eck," and preferred an open attack to a "bite from
   behind the fence."

   [219] This excited the anger of Eck, who broke out, "Tace tu, Philippe,
   ac tua studia cura, ne me perturba."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 38. Philip Melanchthon. Literature (Portrait).

   The best Melanchthon collection is in the Royal Library of Berlin,
   which I have consulted for this list (July, 1886). The third centenary
   of Mel.'s death in 1860, and the erection of his monument in
   Wittenberg, called forth a large number of pamphlets and articles in
   periodicals.

   I. Works of Melanchthon. The first ed. appeared at Basel, 1541, 5 vols.
   fol.; another by Peucer (his son-in-law), Wittenberg, 1562-64, 4 vols.
   fol.; again 1601. Selection of his German works by Köthe. Leipzig,
   1829-30, 6 vols. *Best ed. of Opera omnia (in the "Corpus
   Reformatorum") by Bretschneider and Bindseil. Halle, 1834-60, 28 vols.
   4°. The most important vols. for church history are vols. i.-xi. and
   xxi.-xxviii. The last vol. (second part) contains Annates Vitae (pp.
   1-143), and very ample Indices (145-378).

   Add to these: Epistolae, Judicia, Consilia, Testimonia, etc., ed. H. E.
   Bindseil. Halle, 1874. 8°. A supplement to the "Corpus Reform." Compare
   also Bindseil's Bibliotheca Melanthoniana. Halis 1868 pp. 28). Carl
   Krause: Melanthoniana, Regesten und Briefe über die Beziehungen Philipp
   Mel. zu Anhalt und dessen Fürsten. Zerbst, 1885. pp. 185.

   II. Biographies of Mel. An account of his last days by the Wittenberg
   professors: Brevis narratio exponens quo fine vitam in terris suam
   clauserit D. Phil. Mel. conscripta a professoribus academiae
   Vitebergensis, qui omnibus quae exponuntur interfuerunt. Viteb. 1560.
   4°. The same in German. A funeral oration by Heerbrand: Oratio in
   obitum Mel. habita in Academia Tubingensi die decima quinta Maji.
   Vitebergae, 1560. *Joachim Camerarius: Vita Mel. Lips. 1566; and other
   edd., one with notes by Strobel. Halle, 1777; one with preface by
   Neander in the Vitae quatuor Reformatorum. Berlin, 1841.

   Strobel: Melanchthoniana. Altdorf, 1771: Die Ehre Mel. gerettet, 1773;
   and other works. A. H. Niemeyer: Phil. Mel. als Praeceptor Germaniae.
   Halle, 1817. Fr. Aug. Cox: Life of Mel., comprising an account of the
   Reform. Lond. 1815, 2d ed. 1817. G. L. Fr. Delbrück: Ph. Mel. der
   Glaubenslehrer. Bonn, 1826. Heyd: Mel. und Tübingen, 1512-18. Tüb.
   1839. *Fr. Galle: Characteristik Melanchth. als Theol. und Entw. seines
   Lehrbegr. Halle, 1840. *Fr. Matthes: Ph. Mel. Sein Leben u. Wirken aus
   den Quellen. Altenb. 1841. 2d ed. 1846. Ledderhose: Phil. Mel. nach
   seinem aüsseren u. inneren Leben dargestellt. Heidelberg, 1847 (English
   translation by Dr. Krotel. Phila. 1855). By the same: Das Leben des
   Phil. Mel. für das Volk. Barmen, 1858. *Mor. Meurer: Phil. Mel.'s
   Leben. Leipzig u. Dresden, 1860. 2d ed. 1869. Heppe: Phil. Mel. der
   Lehrer Deutschlands. Marburg, 1860. *Carl Schmidt: Philipp Melanchthons
   Leben und ausgewählte Schriften. Elberfeld, 1861 (in the "Reformatoren
   der Luth. Kirche"). * Herrlinger: Die Theologie Mel.'s in ihrer
   geschichtl. Entwicklung. Gotha, 1879.

   III. Brief sketches, by Neander, in Piper's "Evang.-Kalender" for 1851.
   By Nitzsch, in the "Deutsche Zeitschrift für christl. Wissenschaft,"
   1855. Is. Aug. Dorner: Zum dreihundertjährigen Gedächtniss des Todes
   Melanchthons, 1860. Volbeding: Mel. wie er liebte und lebte (Leipz.
   1860.). Kahnis: Rede zum Gedächtniss Mel.'s (Leipz. 1860). Wohlfahrt:
   Phil. Mel. (Leipzig, 1860). W. Thilo: Mel. im Dienste der heil. Schrift
   (Berlin, 1860). Paul Pressel: Phil. Mel. Ein evang. Lebensbild (Stuttg.
   1860). Festreden zur Erinnerung an den 300 jährigen Todestag Phil.
   Mel.'s und bei der Grundsteinlegung zu dessen Denkmal zu Wittenberg,
   herausgeg. von Lommatzch (Wittenb. 1860). Henke: Das Verhältniss
   Luthers und Mel. zu einander (Marburg, 1860), and Memoria B. Phil. Mel.
   (Marburg, 1860). Ad. Planck: Mel. Praeceptor Germ. (Nördlingen, 1860).
   Tollin: Ph. Mel. und Mich. Servet. Eine Quellenstudie (Berlin, 1876).
   Landerer: Mel., in Herzog1 and Herzog2 ix. 471-525, revised by
   Herrlinger. Thiersch: Mel. (Augsburg, 1877, and New York, Am. Tract
   Soc. 1880). Luthardt: Melanchthon's Arbeiten im Gebiete der Moral
   (Leipz. 1884). Wagenmann: Ph. Mel. (in the "Allgem. Deutsche
   Biographie"). Paulsen in "Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts "(Leipz.
   1885. pp. 34 sqq.). Schaff in St. Augustin, Melanchthon, Neander (New
   York and London, 1886. pp. 107-127).

   IV. On Mel.'s Loci, see Strobel: Literärgesch. von Ph. Mel.'s locis
   theologicis. Altdorf and Nürnberg, 1776. Plitt: Melanchthons Loci in
   ihrer Urgestalt. Erlangen, 1864.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 40. Melanchthon's Early Labors.

   Although yet a youth of twenty-one years of age, Melanchthon at once
   gained the esteem and admiration of his colleagues and hearers in
   Wittenberg. He was small of stature, unprepossessing in his outward
   appearance, diffident and timid. But his high and noble forehead, his
   fine blue eyes, full of fire, the intellectual expression of his
   countenance, the courtesy and modesty of his behavior, revealed the
   beauty and strength of his inner man. His learning was undoubted, his
   moral and religious character above suspicion. His introductory
   address, which he delivered four days after his arrival (Aug. 29), on
   "The Improvement of the Studies of Youth," [220] dispelled all fears:
   it contained the programme of his academic teaching, and marks an epoch
   in the history of liberal education in Germany. He desired to lead the
   youth to the sources of knowledge, and by a careful study of the
   languages to furnish the key for the proper understanding of the
   Scriptures, that they might become living members of Christ, and enjoy
   the fruits of His heavenly wisdom. He studied and taught theology, not
   merely for the enrichment of the mind, but also and chiefly for the
   promotion of virtue and piety. [221]

   He at first devoted himself to philological pursuits, and did more than
   any of his contemporaries to revive the study of Greek for the
   promotion of biblical learning and the cause of the Reformation. He
   called the ancient languages the swaddling-clothes of the Christ-child:
   Luther compared them to the sheath of the sword of the Spirit.
   Melanchthon was master of the ancient languages; Luther, master of the
   German. The former, by his co-operation, secured accuracy to the German
   Bible; the latter, idiomatic force and poetic beauty.

   In the year 1519 Melanchthon graduated as Bachelor of Divinity; the
   degree of Doctor he modestly declined. From that time on, he was a
   member of the theological faculty, and delivered also theological
   lectures, especially on exegesis. He taught two or three hours every
   day a variety of topics, including ethics, logic, Greek and Hebrew
   grammar; he explained Homer, Plato, Plutarch, Titus, Matthew, Romans,
   the Psalms. In the latter period of his life he devoted himself
   exclusively to sacred learning. He was never ordained, and never
   ascended the pulpit; but for the benefit of foreign students who were
   ignorant of German, he delivered every Sunday in his lecture-room a
   Latin sermon on the Gospels. He became at once, and continued to be,
   the most popular teacher at Wittenberg. He drew up the statutes of the
   University, which are regarded as a model. By his advice and example
   the higher education in Germany was regulated.

   His fame attracted students from all parts of Christendom, including
   princes, counts, and barons. His lecture-room was crowded to
   overflowing, and he heard occasionally as many as eleven languages at
   his frugal but hospitable table. He received calls to Tübingen,
   Nürnberg, and Heidelberg, and was also invited to Denmark, France, and
   England; but he preferred remaining in Wittenberg till his death.

   At the urgent request of Luther, who wished to hold him fast, and to
   promote his health and comfort, he married (having no vow of celibacy
   to prevent him) as early as August, 1520, Catharina Krapp, the worthy
   daughter of the burgomaster of Wittenberg, who faithfully shared with
   him the joys and trials of domestic life. He had from her four
   children, and was often seen rocking the cradle with one hand, while
   holding a book in the other. He used to repeat the Apostles' Creed in
   his family three times a day. He esteemed his wife higher than himself.
   She died in 1557 while he was on a journey to the colloquy at Worms:
   when he heard the sad news at Heidelberg, he looked up to heaven, and
   exclaimed, "Farewell! I shall soon follow thee."

   Next to the "Lutherhaus" with the "Luthermuseum," the most interesting
   dwelling in the quaint old town of Wittenberg on the banks of the Elbe
   is the house of Melanchthon in the Collegienstrasse. It is a
   three-story building, and belongs to the Prussian government, King
   Friedrich Wilhelm IV. having bought it from its former owner.
   Melanchthon's study is on the first story; there he died. Behind the
   house is a little garden which was connected with Luther's garden.
   Here, under the shade of the tree, the two Reformers may often have
   exchanged views on the stirring events of the times, and encouraged
   each other in the great conflict. The house bears in German the
   inscription on the outer wall: --


   "Here lived, taught, and died

   Philipp Melanchthon."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [220] De Corrigendis Adolescentium Studiis, in the "Corpus
   Reformatorum," XI. 15 sqq. See Schmidt, l.c. 29 sq.

   [221] He wrote to his friend Camerarius, Jan. 22, 1525 (" Corp. Ref."
   I. 722): "Ego mihi ita conscius sum, non aliam ob causam unquam
   tetheologekenai, nisi ut vitam emendarem."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 41. Luther and Melanchthon.

   P. Schaff: Luther und Melanchthon, In his "Der Deutsche Kirchenfreund,"
   Mercersburg, Pa., vol. III. (1850), pp. 58-64. E. L. Henke: Das
   Verhältniss Luthers und Melanchthons zu einander. Festrede am 19 April,
   1860. Marburg (28 pages). Compare also Döllinger: Die Reformation, vol.
   i. 349 sqq.


   "Wo sich das strenge mit dem Zarten,

   Wo Starkes sich und Mildes paarten,

   Da giebt es einen guten Klang." (Schiller.)

   In great creative epochs of the Church, God associates congenial
   leaders for mutual help and comfort. In the Reformation of the
   sixteenth century, we find Luther and Melanchthon in Germany, Zwingli
   and Oecolampadius, Farel and Viret, Calvin and Beza in Switzerland,
   Craniner, Latimer, and Ridley in England, Knox and Melville in
   Scotland, working together with different gifts, but in the same spirit
   and for the same end. The Methodist revival of the eighteenth century
   was carried on by the co-operation of the two Wesleys and Whitefield;
   and the Anglo-Catholic movement of the nineteenth, by the association
   of Pusey, Newman, and Keble.

   Immediately after his arrival at the Saxon University, on the Elbe,
   Melanchthon entered into an intimate relation with Luther, and became
   his most useful and influential co-laborer. He looked up to his elder
   colleague with the veneration of a son, and was carried away and
   controlled (sometimes against his better judgment) by the fiery genius
   of the Protestant Elijah; while Luther regarded him as his superior in
   learning, and was not ashamed to sit humbly at his feet. He attended
   his exegetical lectures, and published them, without the author's wish
   and knowledge, for the benefit of the Church. Melanchthon declared in
   April, 1520, that "he would rather die than be separated from Luther;"
   and in November of the same year, "Martin's welfare is dearer to me
   than my own life." Luther was captivated by Melanchthon's first
   lecture; he admired his scholarship, loved his character, and wrote
   most enthusiastically about him in confidential letters to Spalatin,
   Reuchlin, Lange, Scheurl, and others, lauding him as a prodigy of
   learning and piety. [222]

   The friendship of these two great and good men is one of the most
   delightful chapters in the religious drama of the sixteenth century. It
   rested on mutual personal esteem and hearty German affection, but
   especially on the consciousness of a providential mission intrusted to
   their united labors. Although somewhat disturbed, at a later period, by
   slight doctrinal differences and occasional ill-humor, [223] it lasted
   to the end; and as they worked together for the same cause, so they now
   rest under the same roof in the castle church at Wittenberg, at whose
   doors Luther had nailed the war-cry of the Reformation.

   Melanchthon descended from South Germany, Luther from North Germany;
   the one from the well-to-do middle classes of citizens and artisans,
   the other from the rough but sturdy peasantry. Melanchthon had a quiet,
   literary preparation for his work: Luther experienced much hardship and
   severe moral conflicts. The former passed to his Protestant conviction
   through the door of classical studies, the latter through the door of
   monastic asceticism; the one was fore-ordained to a professor's chair,
   the other to the leadership of an army of conquest.

   Luther best understood and expressed the difference of temper and
   character; and it is one of his noble traits, that he did not allow it
   to interfere with the esteem and admiration for his younger friend and
   colleague. "I prefer the books of Master Philippus to my own," he wrote
   in 1529. [224] "I am rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether warlike.
   I am born to fight against innumerable monsters and devils. I must
   remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles and thorns, and clear the
   wild forests; but Master Philippus comes along softly and gently,
   sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which God has
   abundantly bestowed upon him."

   Luther was incomparably the stronger man of the two, and differed from
   Melanchthon as the wild mountain torrent differs from the quiet stream
   of the meadow, or as the rushing tempest from the gentle breeze, or, to
   use a scriptural illustration, as the fiery Paul from the contemplative
   John. Luther was a man of war, Melanchthon a man of peace. Luther's
   writings smell of powder; his words are battles; he overwhelms his
   opponents with a roaring cannonade of argument, eloquence, passion, and
   abuse. Melanchthon excels in moderation and amiability, and often
   exercised a happy restraint upon the unmeasured violence of his
   colleague. Once when Luther in his wrath burst out like a thunderstorm,
   Melanchthon quieted him by the line, --


   "Vince animos iramque tuam qui caetera vincis."

   Luther was a creative genius, and pioneer of new paths; Melanchthon, a
   profound scholar of untiring industry. The one was emphatically the man
   for the people, abounding in strong and clear sense, popular eloquence,
   natural wit, genial humor, intrepid courage, and straightforward
   honesty. The other was a quiet, considerate, systematic thinker; a man
   of order, method, and taste, and gained the literary circles for the
   cause of the Reformation. He is the principal founder of a Protestant
   theology, and the author of the Augsburg Confession, the chief symbol
   of the Lutheran Church. He very properly represented the evangelical
   cause in all the theological conferences with the Roman-Catholic party
   at Augsburg, Speier, Worms, Frankfort, Ratisbon, where Luther's
   presence would only have increased the heat of controversy, and widened
   the breach. Luther was unyielding and uncompromising against Romanism
   and Zwinglianism: Melanchthon was always ready for compromise and
   peace, as far as his honest convictions would allow, and sincerely
   labored to restore the broken unity of the Church. He was even willing,
   as his qualified subscription to the Articles of Smalcald shows, to
   admit a certain supremacy of the Pope (jure humano), provided he would
   tolerate the free preaching of the gospel. But Popery and evangelical
   freedom will never agree.

   Luther was the boldest, the most heroic and commanding; Melanchthon,
   the most gentle, pious, and conscientious, of the Reformers.
   Melanchthon had a sensitive and irritable temperament, though under
   good control, and lacked courage; he felt, more keenly and painfully
   than any other, the tremendous responsibility of the great religious
   movement in which he was engaged. He would have made any personal
   sacrifice if he could have removed the confusion and divisions
   attendant upon it. [225] On several occasions he showed, no doubt, too
   much timidity and weakness; but his concessions to the enemy, and his
   disposition to compromise for the sake of peace and unity, proceeded
   always from pure and conscientious motives.

   The two Wittenberg Reformers were brought together by the hand of
   Providence, to supply and complete each other, and by their united
   talents and energies to carry forward the German Reformation, which
   would have assumed a very different character if it had been
   exclusively left in the hands of either of them.

   Without Luther the Reformation would never have taken hold of the
   common people: without Melanchthon it would never have succeeded among
   the scholars of Germany. Without Luther, Melanchthon would have become
   a second Erasmus, though with a profounder interest in religion; and
   the Reformation would have resulted in a liberal theological school,
   instead of giving birth to a Church. However much the humble and
   unostentatious labors and merits of Melanchthon are overshadowed by the
   more striking and brilliant deeds of the heroic Luther, they were, in
   their own way, quite as useful and indispensable. The "still small
   voice" often made friends to Protestantism where the earthquake and
   thunder-storm produced only terror and convulsion.

   Luther is greatest as a Reformer, Melanchthon as a Christian scholar.
   He represents in a rare degree the harmony of humanistic culture with
   biblical theology and piety. In this respect he surpassed all his
   contemporaries, even Erasmus and Reuchlin. He is, moreover, the
   connecting link between contending churches, and a forerunner of
   Christian union and catholicity which will ultimately heal the
   divisions and strifes of Christendom. To him applies the beatitude:
   "Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of
   God."

   The friendship of Luther and Melanchthon drew into its charming circle
   also some other worthy and remarkable residents of Wittenberg,--Lucas
   Cranach the painter, who lent his art to the service of the
   Reformation; Justus Jonas, who came to Wittenberg in 1521 as professor
   and provost of the castle church, translated several writings of Luther
   and Melanchthon into German, and accompanied the former to Worms
   (1521), and on his last journey to Eisleben (1546); and Johann
   Bugenhagen, called Doctor Pomeranus, who moved from Pomerania to
   Wittenberg in 1521 as professor and preacher, and lent the Reformers
   most effective aid in translating the Bible, and organized the
   Reformation in several cities of North Germany and in Denmark.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [222] Lutherus ad Reuchlinum, Dec. 14, 1518: "Philippus noster
   Melanchthon, homo admirabilis, imo pene nihil habens, quod non supra
   hominem sit, familiarissimus tamen et amicissimus mihi." To Billikan he
   wrote in 1523 (De Wette, II. 407): "Den Philippus achte ich nicht
   anders als mich selbst, ausgenomnen in Hinsicht auf seine Gelehrsamkeit
   und die Unbescholtenheit seines Lebens, wodurch er mich, dass ich nicht
   blos sage, übertrifft." In his humorous way he once invited him (Oct.
   18, 1518) to supper under the address: "Philippo Melanchthoni,
   Schwarzerd, Graeco, Latino, Hebraeo, Germano, nunquam Barbaro." The
   testimonies of Luther on Mel. are collected in the first and last vols.
   of the "Corp. Reform." (especially XXViiib. 9 and 10).

   [223] Melanchthon hints also, in one of his confidential letters, at
   female influence, the gunaikoturannis, as an incidental element in the
   disturbance. Corp. Ref.," III. 398.

   [224] In his preface to Melanchthon's Commentary on Colossians.

   [225] Der Schmerz der Kirchenspaltung ist tief durch seine schuldlose
   Seele gegangen."Hase, Kirchengesch., 11th ed. (1886), p. 372.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 42. Ulrich von Hutten and Luther.

   Böcking's edition of Ulrichi Hutteni equitis Germani Opera. Lips,
   185-1861. 5 vols. with three supplements, 1864-1870. Davie, Friedrich
   Strauss (the author of the Leben Jesu): Gespräche von Ulrich von
   Hutten, übersetzt und erläutert, Leipz. 1860, and his biography of
   Ulrich von Hutten, 4th ed., Bonn, 1878 (pp. 567). A masterly work by a
   congenial spirit. Compare K. Hagen, Deutschlands liter. und Rel. Verh.
   in Reformationszeitalter, II. 47-60; Ranke, D. Gesch. I. 289-294;
   Janssen, II. 53 sqq. Werckshagen: Luther u. Hutten, 1888.

   While Luther acquired in Melanchthon, the head of the Christian and
   theological wing of the humanists, a permanent and invaluable ally, he
   received also temporary aid and comfort from the pagan and political
   wing of the humanists, and its ablest leader, Ulrich von Hutten.

   This literary Knight and German patriot was descended from an ancient
   but impoverished noble family of Franconia. He was born April 21, 1488,
   and began life, like Erasmus, as an involuntary monk; but he escaped
   from Fulda in his sixteenth year, studied humanities in the
   universities of Erfurt, Cologne, and Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, law at
   Pavia and Bologna, traveled extensively, corresponded with the most
   prominent men of letters, was crowned as poet by the Emperor Maximilian
   at Augsburg (1517), and occupied an influential position at the court
   of Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz (1517-1520), who had charge of the sale
   of indulgences in Germany.

   He took a lively part in Reuchlin's conflict with the obscurantism of
   the Dominicans of Cologne. [226] He is, next to his friend Crotus of
   Erfurt, the chief author of the Epistolae obscurorum Virorum, that
   barbarous ridicule of barbarism, in which the ignorance, stupidity,
   bigotry, and vulgarity of the monks are exposed by factitious letters
   in their own wretched Latin with such success that they accepted them
   at first as genuine, and bought a number of copies for distribution.
   [227] He vigorously attacked the abuses and corruptions of the Church,
   in Latin and German pamphlets, in poetry and prose, with all the
   weapons of learning, common-sense, wit, and satire. He was, next to
   Luther, the boldest and most effective polemical writer of that period,
   and was called the German Demosthenes on account of his philippics
   against Rome. His Latin is better than Luther's, but his German far
   inferior. In wit and power of ridicule he resembles Lucian; at times he
   reminds one of Voltaire and Heine. He had a burning love of German
   liberty and independence. This was his chief motive for attacking Rome.
   He laid the axe at the root of the tree of tyranny. His motto was,
   "Iacta est alea. Ich hab's gewagt." [228]

   He republished in 1518 the tract of Laurentius Valla on the Donation of
   Constantine, with an embarrassing dedication to Pope Leo X., and
   exposed on German soil that gigantic fraud on which the temporal power
   of the papacy over all Christian Europe was made to rest. But his chief
   and most violent manifesto against Rome is a dialogue which he
   published under the name "Vadiscus, or the Roman Trinity," in April,
   1520, a few months before Luther's "Address to the German Nobility"
   (July) and his "Babylonian Captivity" (October). He here groups his
   experiences in Rome under several triads of what abounds in Rome, of
   what is lacking in Rome, of what is forbidden in Rome, of what one
   brings home from Rome, etc. He puts them into the mouth of a Roman
   consul, Vadiscus, and makes variations on them. Here are some
   specimens: [229] --

   "Three things keep Rome in power: the authority of the Pope, the bones
   of the saints, and the traffic in indulgences.

   "Three things are in Rome without number: strumpets, priests, and
   scribes.

   "Three things abound in Rome: antiquities, poison, and ruins.

   "Three things are banished from Rome: simplicity, temperance, and piety
   (or, in another place: poverty, the ancient discipline, and the
   preaching of the truth).

   "Three things the Romans trade in: Christ, ecclesiastical benefices,
   and women.

   "Three things everybody desires in Rome: short masses, good gold, and a
   luxurious life.

   "Three things are disliked in Rome: a general council, a reformation of
   the clergy, and the fact that the Germans begin to open their eyes.

   "Three things displease the Romans most: the unity of the Christian
   princes, the education of the people, and the discovery of their
   frauds.

   "Three things are most valued in Rome: handsome women, fine horses, and
   papal bulls.

   "Three things are in general use in Rome: luxury of the flesh, splendor
   in dress, and pride of the heart.

   "Three things Rome can never get enough of: money for the episcopal
   pallium, monthly, and annual incomes from vacant benefices. [230]

   "Three things are most praised and yet most rare in Rome. devotion,
   faith and innocence.

   "Three things Rome brings to naught: a good conscience, devotion, and
   the oath.

   "Three things are necessary in Rome to gain a lawsuit: money, letters
   of recommendation, and lies.

   "Three things pilgrims usually bring back from Rome: a soiled
   conscience, a sick stomach, and an empty purse.

   "Three things have kept Germany from getting wisdom: the stupidity of
   the princes, the decay of learning, and the superstition of the people.

   "Three things are feared most in Rome: that the princes get united,
   that the people begin to open their eyes, and that Rome's frauds are
   coming to light.

   "Three things only could set Rome right: the determination of the
   princes, the impatience of the people, and an army of Turks at her
   doors."

   This epigrammatic and pithy form made the dialogue popular and
   effective. Even Luther imitated it when, in his "Babylonian Captivity,"
   he speaks of three walls, and three rods of the Papists. Hutten calls
   the Roman court a sink of iniquity, and says that for centuries no
   genuine successor of Peter had sat on his chair in Rome, but successors
   and imitators of Simon Magus, Nero, Domitian, and Heliogabalus.

   As a remedy for these evils, he advises, not indeed the abolition of
   the papacy, but the withdrawal of all financial support from Germany, a
   reduction of the clerical force, and the permission of clerical
   marriage; by these means, luxury and immorality would at least be
   checked.

   It is characteristic of the church of that age, that Hutten was on
   terms of intimacy with the first prelate of Germany, even while he
   wrote his violent attacks on Rome, and received a salary, and
   afterwards a pension, from him. But he lauded Albrecht to the skies for
   his support of liberal learning. He knew little of, and cared less for,
   doctrinal differences. His policy was to fight the big Pope of Rome
   with the little Pope of Germany, and to make the German emperor,
   princes, and nobles, his allies in shaking off the degrading yoke of
   foreign tyranny. Possibly Albrecht may have indulged in the dream of
   becoming the primate of an independent Catholic Church of Germany.

   Unfortunately, Hutten lacked moral purity, depth, and weight. He was
   Frank, brave, and bold, but full of conceit, a restless adventurer, and
   wild stormer; able to destroy, but unable to build up. In his twentieth
   year he had contracted a disgusting disease which ruined him
   physically, and was used by his Roman opponents to ruin him morally. He
   suffered incredibly from it and from all sorts of quack remedies, for
   ten years, was attacked by it again after his cure, and yet maintained
   the vigor and freshness of his spirit. [231]

   Hutten hailed the Wittenberg movement, though at first only as "a
   quarrel between two hot-headed monks who are shouting and screaming
   against each other" and hoped "that they would eat each other up."
   After the Leipzig disputation, he offered to Luther (first through
   Melanchthon) the aid of his pen and sword, and, in the name of his
   noble friend the Knight Franz von Sickingen, a safe retreat at
   Ebernburg near Kreuznach, where Martin Bucer, Johann Oecolampadius, and
   other fugitives from convents, and sympathizers with reform, found a
   hospitable home. He sent him his books with notes, that he might
   republish them.

   But Luther was cautious. He availed himself of the literary and
   political sympathy, but only as far as his theological and religious
   position allowed. He respected Reuchlin, Erasmus, Crotus, Mutian,
   Pirkheimer, Hutten, and the other humanists, for their learning and
   opposition to monkery and priestcraft; be fully shared the patriotic
   indignation against Romish tyranny: but he missed in them moral
   earnestness, religious depth, and that enthusiasm for the pure gospel
   which was his controlling passion. He aimed at reformation, they at
   illumination. He did not relish the frivolous satire of the Epistolae
   obscurorum virorum; he called them silly, and the author a Hans Wurst
   (Jack Sausage); he would grow indignant, and weep rather than laugh,
   over the obscurantism and secret vices of the monks, though he had as
   keen a sense of the ridiculous as Crotus and Hutten. He deprecated,
   moreover, the resort to physical force in a spiritual warfare, and
   relied on the power of the Word of God, which had founded the Church,
   and which must reform the Church. His letters to Hutten are lost, but
   he wrote to Spalatin (Jan. 16, 1521): "You see what Hutten wants. I
   would not have the gospel defended by violence and murder. In this
   sense I wrote to him. By the Word the world was conquered; by the Word
   the Church was preserved; by the Word she will be restored. Antichrist,
   as he began without violence, will be crushed without violence, by the
   Word."

   Hutten was impatient. He urged matters to a crisis. Sickingen attacked
   the Archbishop and Elector of Trier (Treves) to force the Reformation
   into his territory; but he was defeated, and died of his wounds in the
   hands of his enemies, May 7, 1522. Within one month all his castles
   were captured and mostly burnt by the allied princes; two of his sons
   were banished, a third was made prisoner. Luther saw in this disaster a
   judgment of God, and was confirmed in his aversion to the use of force.
   [232]

   Hutten fled, a poor and sick exile, from Germany to Basel, and hoped to
   find a hospitable reception by Erasmus, his former friend and admirer;
   but he was coldly refused by the cautious scholar, and took bitter
   revenge in an unsparing attack on his character. He then went to
   Zürich, and was kindly and generously treated by Zwingli, who provided
   him with books and money, and sent him first to the hot bath of
   Pfeffers, and then to a quiet retreat on the island of Ufnau in the
   Lake of Zürich, under medical care. But he soon died there, of the
   incurable disease of his youth, in August, 1523, in the Prime of life
   (thirty-five years and four months of age), leaving nothing but his pen
   and sword, and the lesson: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my
   Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).

   With Hutten and Sickingen the hope of a political reconstruction of
   Germany through means of the Reformation and physical force was
   destroyed. What the knights failed to accomplish, the peasants could
   still less secure by the general revolt two years later. But
   notwithstanding these checks, the Reformation was bound to succeed with
   spiritual weapons.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [226] Triumphus Capnionis (kapnios = Reuchlin), a poem written in 1514,
   but not published till 1518 under the pseudo-name of Eleutherius
   Byzenus. Works, III. 413-447; Strauss, U. v. H., 155 sq.

   [227] First published 1515 [at Hagenau], and 1517 at Basel; best ed. by
   Böcking, in Hutten's Opera, Suppl. i. Lips. (1864), and commentary in
   Suppl. ii. (1869); an excellent critical analysis by Strauss, l.c. 165
   sqq. He compares them with Don Quixote. The first book of the Epist. is
   chiefly from Crotus, the second chiefly from Hutten. The comic
   impression arises in great part from the barbarous Latinity, and is
   lost in a translation. There is, however, a good German translation by
   Dr. Wilhelm Binder: Briefe von Dunkelmännern. Stuttgart, 1876. The
   translator says he knew twenty-seven Latin editions, but no
   translation.

   [228] "The die is cast. I have ventured it." An allusion to the
   exclamation of Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon, and marched to Rome.

   [229] Strauss, U. v. H., p. 285 sqq., 289; and his translation, in
   Hutten's Gespr. p. 94 sqq., 114 sqq. I have omitted the interlocutories
   in the dialogue. Vadiscus is Hutten's friend Crotus of Erfurt (also
   Luther's friend); and Ernhold is his friend Arnold Glauberger, with
   whom he had been in Rome.

   [230] Allusion to the papal claims to fill the ecclesiastical vacancies
   which occurred during the long months (January, March, etc.), and to
   receive the annates,i.e, the first year's income from every spiritual
   living worth more than twenty-four ducats per annum. Luther, in his
   Address to the German Nobility, characterizes this papal avarice as
   downright robbery.

   [231] He himself speaks very frankly of his Morbus Gallicus, or Malum
   Franciaeand its horrible effects, without asserting his innocence.
   Strauss discusses it fully with a belief in his guilt, yet pity for his
   sufferings and admiration for his endurance. "Er hatte," he says(U. v.
   H., p. 241),"den Jugendfehler, dessen wir ihn schuldig achten, in einem
   Grade zu büssen, welcher selbst des unerbittlichsten Sittenrichters
   Strenge in Mitleid verwandeln muss .... Man weiss nicht was
   schrecklicher ist, die Beschreibung die uns Hutten von seinem Zustande,
   oder die er uns von den Quälereien macht, welche von unverständigen
   Aerzten als Curen über ihn verhängt wurden."

   [232] E. Münch, Fr. v. Sickingen. Stuttgart, 1827 sqq. 3 vols. Strauss,
   l.c. p. 488. Ullmann, Franz v. Sickingen, Leipzig, 1872.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 43. Luther's Crusade against Popery. 1520.

   After the disputation at Leipzig, Luther lost all hope of a reformation
   from Rome, which was preparing a bull of excommunication.

   Here begins his storm and pressure period, [233] which culminated in
   the burning of the Pope's bull, and the protest at the Diet of Worms.

   Under severe mental anguish he was driven to the conviction that the
   papacy, as it existed in his day, was an anti-christian power, and the
   chief source and support of abuses in the Church. Prierias, Eck, Emser,
   and Alveld defended the most extravagant claims of the papacy with much
   learning, but without any discrimination between fact and fiction.
   Luther learned from the book of Laurentius Valla, as republished by
   Ulrich von Hutten, that the Donation of Constantine, by which this
   emperor conferred on Pope Sylvester and his successors the temporal
   sovereignty not only over the Lateran Palace, but also over Rome,
   Italy, and all the West, was a baseless forgery of the dark ages. He
   saw through the "devilish lies," as he called them, of the Canon law
   and the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. "It must have been a plague sent by
   God," he says (in his "Address to the German Nobility"), "that induced
   so many people to accept such lies, though they are so gross and clumsy
   that one would think a drunken boor could lie more skillfully." Genuine
   Catholic scholars of a later period have exposed with irrefragable
   arguments this falsification of history. His view of the Church
   expanded beyond the limits of the papacy, and took in the Oriental
   Christians, and even such men as Hus, who was burned by an oecumenical
   council for doctrines derived from St. Paul and St. Augustin. Instead
   of confining the Church, like the Romanists, to an external visible
   communion under the Pope, he regarded it now as a spiritual communion
   of all believers under Christ the only Head. All the powers of
   indignation and hatred of Roman oppression and corruption gathered in
   his breast. "I can hardly doubt," he wrote to Spalatin, Feb. 23, 1520,
   "that the Pope is the Antichrist." In the same year, Oct. 11, he went
   so far as to write to Leo X. that the papal dignity was fit only for
   traitors like Judas Iscariot whom God had cast out. [234]

   Luther was much confirmed in his new convictions by Melanchthon, who
   had independently by calm study arrived at the same conclusion. In the
   controversy with Eck, August, 1519, Melanchthon laid down the
   far-reaching principle that the Scriptures are the supreme rule of
   faith, and that we must not explain the Scriptures by the Fathers, but
   explain and judge the Fathers by the Scriptures. He discovered that
   even Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustin had often erred in their exegesis. A
   little later (September, 1519), he raised the same charge against the
   Councils, and maintained that a Catholic Christian could not be
   required to believe any thing that was not warranted by the Scriptures.
   He expressed doubts about transubstantiation and the whole fabric of
   the mass. His estimate of the supreme value of the Scriptures,
   especially of Paul, rose higher and higher, and made him stronger and
   bolder in the conflict with mediaeval tradition.

   Thus fortified by the learning of Melanchthon, encouraged by the
   patriotic zeal of Hutten and Sickingen, goaded by the fury of his
   enemies, and impelled, as it were, by a preternatural impulse, Luther
   attacked the papal power as the very stronghold of Satan. Without
   personal ill-will against anybody, he had a burning indignation against
   the system, and transcended all bounds of moderation. [235] He felt the
   inspiration of a prophet, and had the courage of a martyr ready to die
   at any moment for his conviction.

   He issued in rapid succession from July till October, 1520, his three
   most effective reformatory works: the, "Address to the German
   Nobility," the "Babylonian Captivity of the Church," and the, "Freedom
   of a Christian Man." [236] The first two are trumpets of war, and the
   hardest blows ever dealt by human pen to the system of popery; while
   the third is peaceful, and shines like a rainbow above the
   thunderclouds. A strange contrast! Luther was the most conservative of
   radicals, and the most radical of conservatives. He had all the
   violence of a revolutionary orator, and at the same time the pious
   spirit of a contemplative mystic.

   The sixteenth century was the age of practical soteriology. It had to
   settle the relation of man to God, to bring the believer into direct
   communion with Christ, and to secure to him the personal benefits of
   the gospel salvation. What was heretofore regarded as the exclusive
   privilege of the priest was to become the common privilege of every
   Christian. To this end, it was necessary to break down the walls which
   separated the clergy from the laity, and obstructed the approach to
   God. This was most effectually done by Luther's anti-papal writings. On
   the relation of man to God rests the relation of man to his fellow-men;
   this is the sociological problem which forms one of the great tasks of
   the nineteenth century.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [233] Sturm- und Drangperiode is an expressive German phrase.

   [234] In the midst of a Latin letter to Spalatin, from the beginning of
   June, 1520 (De Wette, I. 453), he gives vent to his wrath against
   popery in these German words:"Ich meine, sie sind zu Rom alle toll,
   thöricht, wüthend, unsinnig, Narren, Stock, Stein, Hölle, und Teufel
   geworden." In the same letter he mentions his intention to publish a
   book"ad Carolum et totius Germaniae nobilitatem adversus Romanae
   curiaetyrannidem et nequitiam."

   [235] See the remarkable passage in his letter to Conrad Pellicanus,
   January or February, 1521 (De Wette, I. 555): "Recte mones modestiae
   me: sentio et ipse, sed compos mei non sum; rapior nescio quo spiritu,
   cum nemini me male velle conscius sim: verum urgent etiam illi
   furiosissime, ut Satanam non satis observem."

   [236] L. Lemme: Die drei grossen Reformationsschriften Luthers vom
   Jahre 1520. Gotha, 1875, 2d ed., 1884. Wace and Bucheim: First
   Principles of the Reformation, London, 1883.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 44. Address to the German Nobility.

   An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation: von des christlichen Standes
   Besserung. In Walch's ed., X. 296 sqq.; Erl. ed., XXI. 274-360; Weimar
   ed., VI. 404. Köstlin (in his shorter biography of Luther, p. 197 New
   York ed.) gives a facsimile of the title-page of the second edition.
   Dr. Karl Benrath of Bonn published a separate ed., with introduction
   and notes, as No. 4 of the "Schriften des Vereins für
   Reformationsgeschichte." Halle, 1886 (114 pages).

   "The time for silence is gone, and the time for speaking has come."
   With these words (based on Eccles. 3:7) of the dedicatory preface to
   Amsdorf, Luther introduces his address, to his most Serene and Mighty
   Imperial Majesty, and to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,
   respecting a Reformation of the Christian Estate." The preface is dated
   on the Eve of St. John the Baptist (June 23), 1520; the book was
   hastily completed July 20, [237] and before Aug. 18 no less than four
   thousand copies--an enormous number for those days--were published, and
   a new edition called for, besides reprints which soon appeared in
   Leipzig and Strassburg.

   The book is a most stirring appeal to the German nobles, who, through
   Hutten and Sickingen, had recently offered their armed assistance to
   Luther. He calls upon them to take the much-needed Reformation of the
   Church into their own hands; not, indeed, by force of arms, but by
   legal means, in the fear of God, and in reliance upon his strength. The
   bishops and clergy refused to do their duty; hence the laity must come
   to the front of the battle for the purity and liberty of the Church.

   Luther exposes without mercy the tyranny of the Pope, whose government,
   he says, "agrees with the government of the apostles as well as Lucifer
   with Christ, hell with heaven, night with day; and yet he calls himself
   Christ's Vicar, and the Successor of Peter."

   The book is divided into three parts: --

   1. In the first part, Luther pulls down what he calls the three walls
   of Jericho, which the papacy had erected in self-defense against any
   reformation; namely, the exclusion of the laity from all control, the
   exclusive claim to interpret the Scriptures, and the exclusive claim to
   call a Council.

   Under the first head, he brings out clearly and strongly, in opposition
   to priestcraft, the fundamental Protestant principle of the general
   priesthood of all baptized Christians. He attacks the distinction of
   two estates, one spiritual, consisting of Pope, bishops, priests, and
   monks; and one temporal, consisting of princes, lords, artificers, and
   peasants. There is only one body, under Christ the Head. All Christians
   belong to the spiritual estate. Baptism, gospel and faith,--these alone
   make spiritual and Christian people. [238] We are consecrated priests
   by baptism; we are a royal priesthood, kings and priests before God (1
   Pet. 2:9; Rev. 5:10). The only difference, then, between clergy and
   laity, is one of office and function, not of estate.

   Luther represents here the ministerial office as the creature of the
   congregation; while at a later period, warned by democratic excesses,
   and the unfitness of most of the congregations of that age for a
   popular form of government, he laid greater stress upon the importance
   of the ministry as an institution of Christ. This idea of the general
   priesthood necessarily led to the emancipation of the laity from
   priestly control, and their participation in the affairs of the Church,
   although this has been but very imperfectly carried out in Protestant
   state churches. It destroyed the distinction between higher (clerical
   and monastic), and lower morality; it gave sanctity to the natural
   relations, duties, and virtues; it elevated the family as equal in
   dignity to virginity; it promoted general intelligence, and sharpened
   the sense of individual responsibility to the Church. But to the same
   source may be traced also the undue interference of kings, princes, and
   magistrates in ecclesiastical matters, and that degrading dependence of
   many Protestant establishments upon the secular power. Kingcraft and
   priestcraft are two opposite extremes, equally opposed to the spirit of
   Christianity. Luther, and especially Melanchthon, bitterly complained,
   in their later years, of the abuse of the episcopal power assumed by
   the magistrate, and the avarice of princes in the misappropriation of
   ecclesiastical property.

   The principle of the general priesthood of the laity found its
   political and civil counterpart in the American principle of the
   general kingship of men, as expressed in the Declaration of
   Independence, that "all men are born free and equal."

   2. In the second part, Luther chastises the worldly pomp of the Pope
   and the cardinals, their insatiable greed, and exactions under false
   pretenses.

   3. In the third part, he deals with practical suggestions. He urges
   sweeping reforms in twenty-seven articles, to be effected either by the
   civil magistrate, or by a general council of ministers and laymen.

   He recommends the abolition of the annates, of the worldly pomp and
   idolatrous homage paid to the Pope (as kissing his feet), and of his
   whole temporal power, so that he should be hereafter merely a spiritual
   ruler, with no power over the emperor except to anoint and crown him,
   as a bishop crowns a king, as Samuel crowned Saul and David.

   He strongly demands the abrogation of enforced clerical celibacy, which
   destroys instead of promoting chastity, and is the cause of untold
   misery. Clergymen should be allowed to marry, or not to marry,
   according to their gift and sense of duty.

   Masses for the dead should be abolished, since they have become a
   solemn mockery, and devices for getting money, thus exciting the anger
   of God.

   Processions, saints' days, and most of the public festivals, except
   Sunday, should be abrogated, since holy days have become most unholy by
   drinking, gambling, and idling.

   Monasteries should be reduced in number, and converted into schools,
   with freedom to enter and to leave without binding vows.

   Certain punishments of the Canon law should cease, especially the
   interdict which silences God's word and service,--a greater sin than to
   kill twenty Popes at once.

   Fasts should be voluntary and optional; for whilst at Rome they laugh
   at fasts, they let us abroad eat oil which they would not think fit for
   greasing their boots, and then sell us the liberty of eating butter and
   other things; whereas the apostle says that the gospel has given us
   liberty in all such matters (1 Cor. 10:25 sq.).

   He also would forbid all begging in Christendom; each town should
   support its own poor, and not allow strange beggars to come in, whether
   pilgrims or mendicant monks; it is not right that one should work that
   another may be idle, and live ill that another may live well, but "if
   any would not work, neither should he eat" (2 Thess. 3:10).

   He counsels a reduction of the clerical force, and the prohibition of
   pluralities. "As for the fraternities, together with indulgences,
   letters of indulgence, dispensations, masses, and all such things, let
   them all be drowned and abolished."

   He recommends (Art. 24) to do justice to, and make peace with, the
   Bohemians; for Hus and Jerome of Prague were unjustly burnt, in
   violation of the safe-conduct promised by the Pope and the Emperor.
   Heretics should be overcome with books, not with fire; else, the
   hangmen would be the most learned doctors in the world, and there would
   be no need of study."

   In Art. 25, Luther urges a sound reformation of the universities, which
   had become "schools of Greek fashion" and "heathenish manners" (2 Macc.
   4:12, 13), and are, full of dissolute living." He is unjustly severe
   upon Aristotle, whom he calls a "dead, blind, accursed, proud, knavish
   heathen teacher." His logic, rhetoric, and poetic might be, retained;
   but his physics, metaphysics, ethics, and the book "Of the Soul" (which
   teaches that the soul dies with the body) ought to be banished, and the
   study of the languages, mathematics, history, and especially of the
   Holy Scriptures, cultivated instead. "Nothing is more devilishly
   mischievous," he says, "than an unreformed university." He would also
   have the Canon law banished, of which there is "nothing good but the
   name," and which is no better than "waste paper."

   He does not spare national vices. He justly rebukes the extravagance in
   dress, the usury, and especially the intemperance in eating and
   drinking, for which, he says, "we Germans have an ill reputation in
   foreign countries, as our special vice, and which has become so common,
   and gained so much the upper hand, that sermons avail nothing." (His
   frequent protest against the "Saufteufel" of the Germans, as he calls
   their love of drink, is still unheeded. In temperance the Southern
   nations of Europe are far ahead of those of the North.)

   In conclusion, he expresses the expectation that he will be condemned
   upon earth. "My greatest care and fear is, lest my cause be not
   condemned by men; by which I should know for certain that it does not
   please God. Therefore let them freely go to work, Pope, bishop, priest,
   monk, or doctor: they are the true people to persecute the truth, as
   they have always done. May God grant us all a Christian understanding,
   and especially to the Christian nobility of the German nation true
   spiritual courage, to do what is best for our unhappy Church. Amen."

   The book was a firebrand thrown into the headquarters of the papal
   church. It anticipated a reply to the papal bull, and prepared the
   public mind for it. It went right to the heart of the Germans, in their
   own language wielded with a force as never before, and gave increased
   weight to the hundred grievances of long standing against Rome. But it
   alarmed some of his best friends. They condemned or regretted his
   biting severity. [239] Staupitz tried at the eleventh hour to prevent
   the publication, and soon afterwards (Aug. 23, 1520) resigned his
   position as general vicar of the Angustinians, and retired to Salzburg,
   feeling himself unequal to the conflict. John Lange called the book a
   "blast for assault, atrocious and ferocious." Some feared that it might
   lead to a religious war. Melanchthon could not approve the violence,
   but dared not to check the spirit of the new Elijah. Luther defended
   himself by referring to the example of Paul and the prophets: it was
   necessary to be severe in order to get a hearing; he felt sure that he
   was not moved by desire for glory or money or pleasure, and disclaimed
   the intention of stirring up sedition and war; he only wished to clear
   the way for a free general council; he was perhaps the forerunner of
   Master Philippus in fighting Ahab and the prophets of Baal after the
   example of Elijah (1 Kings 18). [240]

   NOTES.

   The following extracts give a fair idea of Luther's polemic against the
   Pope in this remarkable book: --

   "The custom of kissing the Pope's feet must cease. It is an
   un-Christian, or rather an anti-Christian example, that a poor sinful
   man should suffer his feet to be kissed by one who is a hundred times
   better than he. If it is done in honor of his power, why does he not do
   it to others in honor of their holiness? Compare them together: Christ
   and the Pope. Christ washed his disciples' feet, and dried them, and
   the disciples never washed his. The Pope, pretending to be higher than
   Christ, inverts this, and considers it a great favor to let us kiss his
   feet: whereas if any one wished to do so, he ought to do his utmost to
   prevent them, as St. Paul and Barnabas would not suffer themselves to
   be worshiped as gods by the men at Lystra, saying, 'We also are men of
   like passions with you' (Acts 14:14 seq.). But our flatterers have
   brought things to such a pitch, that they have set up an idol for us,
   until no one regards God with such fear, or honors him with such
   reverence, as they do the Pope. This they can suffer, but not that the
   Pope's glory should be diminished a single hairsbreadth. Now, if they
   were Christians, and preferred God's honor to their own, the Pope would
   never be willing to have God's honor despised, and his own exalted; nor
   would he allow any to honor him, until he found that God's honor was
   again exalted above his own.

   "It is of a piece with this revolting pride, that the Pope is not
   satisfied with riding on horseback or in a carriage, but, though he be
   hale and strong, is carried by men like an idol in unheard-of pomp. I
   ask you, how does this Lucifer-like pride agree with the example of
   Christ, who went on foot, as did also all his apostles? Where has there
   been a king who lived in such worldly pomp as he does, who professes to
   be the head of all whose duty it is to despise and flee from all
   worldly pomp--I mean, of all Christians? Not that this need concern us
   for his own sake, but that we have good reason to fear God's wrath, if
   we flatter such pride, and do not show our discontent. It is enough
   that the Pope should be so mad and foolish, but it is too much that we
   should sanction and approve it."

   After enumerating all the abuses to which the Pope and his Canon law
   give sanction, and which he upholds with his usurped authority, Luther
   addresses him in this impassioned style: --

   "Dost thou hear this, O Pope! not the most holy, but the most sinful?
   Would that God would hurl thy chair headlong from heaven, and cast it
   down into the abyss of hell! Who gave you the power to exalt yourself
   above God? to break and to loose what he has commanded? to teach
   Christians, more especially Germans, who are of noble nature, and are
   famed in all histories for uprightness and truth, to be false,
   unfaithful, perjured, treacherous, and wicked? God has commanded to
   keep faith and observe oaths even with enemies: you dare to cancel his
   command, laying it down in your heretical, antichristian decretals,
   that you have power to do so; and through your mouth and your pen Satan
   lies as he never lied before, teaching you to twist and pervert the
   Scriptures according to your own arbitrary will. O Lord Christ! look
   down upon this, let thy day of judgment come and destroy the Devil's
   lair at Rome. Behold him of whom St. Paul spoke (2 Thess. 2:3, 4), that
   he should exalt himself above thee, and sit in thy Church, showing
   himself as God--the man of sin and the child of damnation .... The Pope
   treads God's commandments under foot, and exalts his own: if this is
   not Antichrist, I do not know what it is."

   Janssen (II. 100) calls Luther's "Address to the German Nobility" "das
   eigentliche Kriegsmanifest der Lutherisch-Huttenschen
   Revolutionspartei," and "ein Signal zum gewaltsamen Angriff." But the
   book nowhere counsels war; and in the letter to Link he says expressly:
   "nec hoc a me agitur, ut seditionem moveam, sed ut concilio generali
   libertatem asseram"(De Wette, I. 479). Janssen quotes (p. 103) a very
   vehement passage from Luther's contemporaneous postscript to a book of
   Prierias which he republished (De juridica et irrefragabili veritate
   Romanae Ecclesiae Romanique Pontificis), expressing a wish that the
   Emperor, kings, and princes would make a bloody end to Pope and
   cardinals and the whole rabble of the Romish Sodom. But this extreme
   and isolated passage is set aside by his repeated declarations against
   carnal warfare, and was provoked by the astounding assertions of
   Prierias, the master of the papal palace, that the Pope was the
   infallible judge of all controversies, the head of all spiritual, the
   father of all secular princes, the head of the Church and of the whole
   universe (caput totius orbis universi). Against such blasphemy Luther
   breaks out in these words: "Mihi vero videtur, si sic pergat furor
   Romanistarum, nullum reliquum esse remedium, quam ut imperator, reges
   et principes vi et armis accincti aggrediantur has pestes orbis
   terrarum, remque non jam verbis, sed ferro decernant .... Si fures
   furca, si latrones gladio, si haereticos igne plectimus, cur non magis
   hos magistros perditionis, hos cardinales, hos papas et totam istam
   romanae Sodomae colluviem, quae ecclesiam Dei sine fine corrumpit,
   omnibus armis impetimus, et manus nostras in sanguine eorum lavamus?
   tanquam a communi et omnium periculosissimo incendio nos nostrosque
   liberaturi." Erl. ed., Opera Latina, II. 107. He means a national
   resistance under the guidance of the Emperor and rightful rulers.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [237] On that date he informed Wencislaus Link: "Editur noster libellus
   in Papam de reformanda ecclesia vernaculus, ad universam nobilitatem
   Germaniae, qui summe offensurus est Romam .... Vale, et ora pro me." De
   Wette, I. 470.

   [238] "Was aus der Taufe gekrochen ist, das mag sich rühmen, dass es
   schon Priester, Bischof, und Papst geweihet sei."

   [239] "Omnes ferme [fere] in me damnant mordacitatem," he says in
   letter to Link, Aug. 19, 1520.

   [240] See his letters to John Lange (Aug. 18, 1520) and to Wenceslaus
   Link (Aug. 19) in De Wette, I. 477-479.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 45. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. October, 1520.

   De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae Praeludium D. Martini Lutheri.
   Wittenb. 1520. Erl. ed. Opera Lat., vol. V. 13-118; German translation
   (Von der Babylonischen Gefängniss, etc.) by an unknown author, 1520,
   reprinted in Walch, XIX. 5-153, and in 0. v. Gerlach, IV. 65-199; the
   Lat. original again in the Weimar ed., vol. V. An English translation
   by Buchheim in First Principles of the Reformation (London, 1883), pp.
   141-245.

   In closing the "Address to the Nobility," Luther announces: "I have
   another song still to sing concerning Rome. If they wish to hear it, I
   will sing it to them, and sing with all my might. Do you understand, my
   friend Rome, what I mean?"

   This new song, or second war-trumpet, was the book on the, "Babylonian
   Captivity of the Church," published in the beginning of October, 1520.
   [241] He calls it a "prelude," as if the real battle were yet to come.
   He intended it for scholars and the clergy, and therefore wrote in
   Latin. It is a polemical, theological work of far-reaching
   consequences, cutting one of the roots of Romanism, and looking towards
   a new type of Christian life and worship. He attacks the sacramental
   system of the Roman Church, by which she accompanies and controls the
   life of the Christian from the cradle to the grave, and brings every
   important act and event under the power of the priest. This system he
   represents as a captivity, and Rome as the modern Babylon. Yet he was
   very far from undervaluing the importance and benefit of the sacrament;
   and as far as the doctrine of baptism and the eucharist is concerned,
   he agreed better with the Catholic than with the Zwinglian view.

   Luther begins by thanking his Romish opponents for promoting his
   theological education. "Two years ago," he says, "I wrote about
   indulgences when I was still involved in superstitious respect for the
   tyranny of Rome; but now I have learned, by the kind aid of Prierias
   and the friars, that indulgences are nothing but wicked devices of the
   flatterers of Rome. Afterwards Eck and Emser instructed me concerning
   the primacy of the Pope. While I denied the divine right, I still
   admitted the human right; but after reading the super-subtle subtilties
   of those coxcombs in defense of their idol, I became convinced that the
   papacy is the kingdom of Babylon and the power of Nimrod the mighty
   hunter. Now a learned professor of Leipzig writes against me on the
   sacrament in both kinds, and is about to do still greater wonders.
   [242] He says that it was neither commanded nor decreed, whether by
   Christ or the apostles, that both kinds should be administered to the
   laity."

   1. Luther first discusses the sacrament of the Holy Communion, and
   opposes three errors as a threefold bondage; namely, the withdrawal of
   the cup from the laity, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the
   sacrifice of the mass.

   (a) As regards the withdrawal of the cup, he refutes the flimsy
   arguments of Alveld, and proves from the accounts of Matthew, Mark,
   Luke, and Paul, that the whole sacrament was intended for the laity as
   well as the clergy, according to the command, "Drink ye all of this."
   Each writer attaches the mark of universality to the cup, not to the
   bread, as if the Spirit foresaw the (Bohemian) schism. The blood of
   Christ was shed for all for the remission of sins. If the laymen have
   the thing, why should they be refused the sign which is much less than
   the thing itself? The Church has no more right to take away the cup
   from the laity than the bread. The Romanists are the heretics and
   schismatics in this case, and not the Bohemians and the Greeks who take
   their stand on the manifest teaching of the Word of God. "I conclude,
   then, that to deny reception in both kinds to the laity is an act of
   impiety and tyranny, and one not in the power of any angel, much less
   of any Pope or council whatsoever." ... "The sacrament does not belong
   to the priests, but to all; nor are the priests lords, but servants,
   whose duty it is to give both kinds to those who seek them, as often as
   they seek them." ... "Since the Bishop of Rome has ceased to be a
   bishop, and has become a tyrant, I fear absolutely none of his decrees;
   for I know that neither he, nor even a general council, has authority
   to establish new articles of faith."

   (b) The doctrine of transubstantiation is a milder bondage, and might
   be held alongside with the other and more natural view of the real
   presence, which leaves the elements unchanged. It is well known that
   Luther was to the end of life a firm believer in the real presence, and
   oral manducation of the very body and blood of Christ by unworthy as
   well as worthy communicants (of course, with opposite effects). He
   denied a miraculous change of the substance of the elements, but
   maintained the co-existence of the body and blood in, with, and under
   bread and wine, both being real, the one invisible and the other
   visible. [243] In this book he claims toleration for both theories,
   with a personal preference for the latter. "Christians are at liberty,
   without peril to their salvation, to imagine, think, or believe in
   either of the two ways, since here there is no necessity of faith." ...
   "I will not listen to those, or make the slightest account of them, who
   will cry out that this doctrine is Wiclifite, Hussite, heretical, and
   opposed to the decisions of the Church." The Scripture does not say
   that the elements are transubstantiated: Paul calls them real bread and
   real wine, just as the cup was real. Moreover, Christ speaks
   (figuratively), "This cup is the new covenant in my blood," meaning his
   blood contained in the cup. Transubstantiation is a scholastic or
   Aristotelian figment of the twelfth century. [244] "Why should Christ
   not be able to include his body within the substance of bread, as well
   as within the accidents? Fire and iron, two different substances, are
   so mingled in red-hot iron, that in every part of it are both fire and
   iron. Why may not the glorious body of Christ much more be in every
   part of the substance of the bread?" Common people do not understand
   the difference between substance and accidents, nor argue about it, but
   "believe with simple faith that the body and blood of Christ are truly
   contained in the elements." So also the incarnation does not require a
   transubstantiation of the human nature, that so the Godhead may be
   contained beneath the accidents of the human nature; "but each nature
   is entire, and we can say with truth, This man is God; this God is
   man."

   (c) The sacrifice of the mass: that is, the offering to God of the very
   body and blood of Christ by the hands of the priest when he pronounces
   the words of institution; in other words, an actual repetition of the
   atoning sacrifice of the cross, only in an unbloody manner. This
   institution is the very heart of Roman-Catholic (and Greek-Catholic)
   worship. Luther attacks it as the third bondage, and the most impious
   of all. He feels the difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of a task
   which involves an entire revolution of public worship. "At this day,"
   he says, "there is no belief in the Church more generally received, or
   more firmly held, than that the mass is a good work and a sacrifice.
   This abuse has brought in an infinite flood of other abuses, until
   faith in the sacrament has been utterly lost, and they have made this
   divine sacrament a mere subject of traffic, huckstering, and
   money-getting contracts; and the entire maintenance of priests and
   monks depends upon these things." He goes back to the simplicity of the
   primitive institution of the Lord's Supper, which is a thankful
   commemoration of the atoning death of Christ, with a blessing attached
   to it, namely, the forgiveness of sins, to be appropriated by faith.
   The substance of this sacrament is promise and faith. It is a gift of
   God to man, not a gift of man to God. It is, like baptism, to be
   received, and not to be given. The Romanists have changed it into a
   good work of man and an opus operatum, by which they imagine to please
   God; and have surrounded it with so many prayers, signs, vestments,
   gestures, and ceremonies, that the original meaning is obscured. "They
   make God no longer the bestower of good gifts on us, but the receiver
   of ours. Alas for such impiety!" He proves from the ancient Church that
   the offering of the eucharist, as the name indicates, was originally a
   thank-offering of the gifts of the communicants for the benefit of the
   poor. The true sacrifice which we are to offer to God is our thanks,
   our possessions, and our whole person. He also objects to the use of
   the Latin language in the mass, and demands the vernacular.

   2. The sacrament of Baptism. Luther thanks God that this sacrament has
   been preserved uninjured, and kept from "the foul and impious
   monstrosities of avarice and superstition." He agrees essentially with
   the Roman doctrine, and considers baptism as a means of regeneration;
   while Zwingli and Calvin regarded it merely as a sign and seal of
   preceding regeneration and church-membership. He even makes more of it
   than the Romanists, and opposes the prevailing view of St. Jerome, that
   penitence is a second plank of refuge after shipwreck. Instead of
   relying on priestly absolution, it is better to go back to the
   remission of sins secured in baptism. "When we rise out of our sins,
   and exercise penitence, we are simply reverting to the efficacy of
   baptism and to faith in it, whence we had fallen; and we return to the
   promise then made to us, but which we had abandoned through our sin.
   For the truth of the promise once made always abides, and is ready to
   stretch out the hand and receive us when we return."

   As to the mode of baptism, he gives here, as elsewhere, his preference
   to immersion, which then still prevailed in England and in some parts
   of the Continent, and which was not a point of dispute either between
   Romanists and Protestants, or between Protestants and Anabaptists;
   while on the question of infant-baptism the Anabaptists differed from
   both. "Baptism," he says, "is that dipping into water whence it takes
   its name. For, in Greek to baptize signifies to dip, and baptism is a
   dipping." "Baptism signifies two things,--death and resurrection; that
   is, full and complete justification. When the minister dips the child
   into the water, this signifies death; when he draws him out again, this
   signifies life. Thus Paul explains the matter (Rom. 6:4) .... I could
   wish that the baptized should be totally immersed, according to the
   meaning of the word and the signification of the mystery; not that I
   think it necessary to do so, but that it would be well that so complete
   and perfect a thing as baptism should also be completely and perfectly
   expressed in the sign."

   Luther's view of baptismal regeneration seems to be inconsistent with
   his chief doctrine of justification by faith alone. He says, "It is not
   baptism which justifies any man, or is of any advantage; but faith in
   that word of promise to which baptism is added: for this justifies and
   fulfills the meaning of baptism. For faith is the submerging of the old
   man, and the emerging of the new man." But how does this apply to
   baptized infants, who can not be said to have faith in any proper sense
   of the term, though they have undoubtedly the capacity of faith? Luther
   here brings in the vicarious faith of the parents or the Church. But he
   suggests also the idea that faith is produced in the children, through
   baptism, on the ground of their religious receptivity.

   3. Lastly, Luther attacks the traditional number of the sacraments. He
   allows "only two sacraments in the Church of God, Baptism and Bread;
   since it is in these alone that we see both a sign divinely instituted,
   and a promise of remission of sins." In some sense he retains also the
   sacrament of Penance, as a way and means of return to baptism.

   The rest of the seven Roman sacraments--confirmation, marriage,
   ordination, and extreme unction--he rejects because they can not be
   proved from Scripture, and are not commanded by Christ.

   Matrimony has existed from the beginning of the world, and belongs to
   all mankind. Why, then, should it be called a sacrament? Paul calls it
   a "mystery," but not a sacrament, as translated in the Vulgate (Ep.
   5:32); or rather he speaks there of the union of Christ and the Church,
   which is reflected in matrimony as in a sort of allegory. But the Pope
   has restricted this universal human institution by rigorous impediments
   derived from spiritual affinity and legal relationship. He forbids it
   to the clergy, and claims the power to annull rightful marriages, even
   against the will of one of the parties. "Learn, then, in this one
   matter of matrimony, into what an unhappy and hopeless state of
   confusion, hindrance, entanglement, and peril all things that are done
   in the Church have been brought by the pestilent and impious traditions
   of men! There is no hope of a remedy, unless we do away with all the
   laws of men, call back the gospel of liberty, and judge and rule all
   things according to it alone."

   Luther closes with these words: "I hear a report that fresh bulls and
   papal curses are being, prepared against me, by which I am urged to
   recant, or else to be declared a heretic. If this is true, I wish this
   little book to be a part of my future recantation, that they may not
   complain that their tyranny has puffed itself up in vain. I shall also
   shortly publish, Christ being my helper, such a recantation as the See
   of Rome has never yet seen or heard, thus abundantly testifying my
   obedience in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. [245] Amen.


   " 'Hostis Herodes impie,

   Christum venire quid times?

   Non arripit mortalia

   Qui regna dat coelestia.' "
     __________________________________________________________________

   [241] On Oct. 3, 1520, Luther wrote to Spalatin: "Liber de captivitate
   Ecclesiae sabbato exibit, et ad te mittetur." (De Wette, I 491.)

   [242] He means Alveld's Tractatus de communione sub utraque specie
   quantum ad laicos, 1520. He contemptuously omits his name.

   [243] This view is usually called consubstantiation; but Lutherans
   object to the term in the sense ofimpanation, or local inclusion,
   mixture, and circumscription. They mean an illocal presence of a
   ubiquitous body.

   [244] This is not strictly historical. Transubstantiation was clearly
   taught by Paschasius Radbertus in the ninth century, though not without
   contradiction from Ratramnus. See Schaff,Ch. Hist., vol. IV. 544 sqq.

   [245] Perhaps he means the burning of the Pope's bull, rather than, as
   O. v. Gerlach conjectures, the appendix to his later book against
   Ambrosius Catharinus, in which he tries to prove that the Pope is the
   Antichrist predicted by Dan. viii. 23-25.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 46. Christian Freedom.--Luther's Last Letter to the Pope. October,
   1520.

   Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, Wittenberg, 1520; often
   reprinted separately, and in the collected works of Luther. See Walch,
   XIX. 1206 sqq.; Erl. ed., XXVII. 173-200 (from the first ed.);
   Gerlach's ed. V. 5-46. The Latin edition, De Libertate Christiana, was
   finished a little later, and has some additions; see Erl. ed. Opera
   Lat., IV. 206-255. Luther's letter to the Pope in Latin and German is
   printed also in De Wette, I. 497-515. English version of the tract and
   the letter by Buchheim, l.c. 95-137.

   Although Rome had already condemned Luther, the papal delegate Miltitz
   still entertained the hope of a peaceful settlement. He had extracted
   from Luther the promise to write to the Pope. He had a final interview
   with him and Melanchthon at Lichtenberg (now Lichtenburg, in the
   district of Torgau), in the convent of St. Antony, Oct. 11, 1520, a few
   days after Luther had seen the bull of excommunication. It was agreed
   that Luther should write a book, and a letter in Latin and German to
   Leo X., and assure him that he had never attacked his person, and that
   Dr. Eck was responsible for the whole trouble. The book was to be
   finished in twelve days, but. dated back to Sept. 6 in order to avoid
   the appearance of being occasioned by the Pope's bull.

   This is the origin of two of the most remarkable productions of
   Luther,--his little book on "Christian Freedom," and a dedicatory
   letter to Leo X.

   The beautiful tract on "Christian Freedom" is a pearl among Luther's
   writings. It presents a striking contrast to his polemic treatises
   against Rome, which were intended to break down the tyranny of popery.
   And yet it is a positive complement to them, and quite as necessary for
   a full understanding of his position. While opposing the Pope's
   tyranny, Luther was far from advocating the opposite extreme of
   license. He was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Epistle to the
   Galatians, which protests against both extremes, and inspired the
   keynote to Luther's Tract. He shows wherein true liberty consists. He
   means liberty according to the gospel; liberty in Christ, not from
   Christ; and offers this as a basis for reconciliation. He presents here
   a popular summary of Christian life. He keeps free from all polemics,
   and writes in the best spirit of that practical mysticism which
   connected him with Staupitz and Tauler.

   The leading idea is: The Christian is the lord of all, and subject to
   none, by virtue of faith; he is the servant of all, and subject to
   every one, by virtue of love. Faith and love constitute the Christian:
   the one binds him to God, the other to his fellow-man. The idea is
   derived from St. Paul, who says, "Though I was free from all men, I
   brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more" (1
   Cor. 9:19); and "Owe no man any thing, save to love one another" (Rom.
   13:8). It was carried out by Christ, who was Lord of all things, yet
   born of a woman, born under the law that he might redeem them who were
   under the law (Gal. 4:4); who was at once in the form of God, and in
   the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6, 7). The Christian life is an
   imitation of the' life of Christ,--a favorite idea of the mediaeval
   mystics.

   Man is made free by faith, which alone justifies; but it manifests
   itself in love, and all good works. The person must first be good
   before good works can be done, and good works proceed from a good
   person; as Christ says, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,
   neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (Matt. 7:18). The
   fruit does not bear the tree, nor does the tree grow on the fruit; but
   the tree bears the fruit, and the fruit grows on the tree. So it is in
   all handicrafts. A good or bad house does not make a good or bad
   builder, but the good or bad builder makes a good or bad house. Such is
   the case with the works of men. Such as the man himself is, whether in
   faith or in unbelief, such is his work; good if it is done in faith,
   bad if in unbelief. Faith, as it makes man a believer, so also it makes
   his works good; but works do not make a believing man, nor a justified
   man. We do not reject works; nay, we commend them, and teach them in
   the highest degree. It is not on their own account that we condemn
   them, but on account of the perverse notion of seeking justification by
   them. "From faith flow forth love and joy in the Lord; and from love, a
   cheerful, willing, free spirit, disposed to serve our neighbor
   voluntarily, without taking any account of gratitude or ingratitude,
   praise or blame, gain or loss. Its object is not to lay men under
   obligations; nor does it distinguish between friends and enemies, or
   look to gratitude or ingratitude; but most freely and willingly it
   spends itself and its goods, whether it loses them through ingratitude,
   or gains good-will. For thus did its Father, distributing all things to
   all men abundantly and freely, making his sun to rise upon the just and
   the unjust. Thus, too, the child does and endures nothing except from
   the free joy with which it delights through Christ in God, the giver of
   such great gifts." ...

   "Who, then, can comprehend the riches and glory of the Christian life?
   It can do all things, has all things, and is in want of nothing; is
   lord over sin, death, and hell, and, at the same time, is the obedient
   and useful servant of all. But alas! it is at this day unknown
   throughout the world; it is neither preached nor sought after, so that
   we are quite ignorant about our own name, why we are and are called
   Christians. We are certainly called so from Christ, who is not absent,
   but dwells among us, provided we believe in him; and are reciprocally
   and mutually one the Christ of the other, doing to our neighbor as
   Christ does to us. But now, in the doctrine of men, we are taught only
   to seek after merits, rewards, and things which are already ours; and
   we have made of Christ a task-master far more severe than Moses." ...

   "We conclude, then, that a Christian man does not live in and for
   himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor, or else is no Christian; in
   Christ by faith, in his neighbor by love. By faith he is carried
   upwards above himself to God, and by love he descends below himself to
   his neighbor, still always abiding in God and his love; as Christ says,
   'Verily I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see the heaven opened, and
   the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man' " (John
   1:51

   In the Latin text Luther adds some excellent remarks against those who
   misunderstand and distort spiritual liberty, turn it into an occasion
   of carnal license, and show their freedom by their contempt of
   ceremonies, traditions, and human laws. St. Paul teaches us to walk in
   the middle path, condemning either extreme, and saying, "Let not him
   that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth
   not judge him that eateth" (Rom. 14:3). We must resist the hardened and
   obstinate ceremonialists, as Paul resisted the Judaizers who would
   compel Titus to be circumcised; and we must spare the weak who are not
   yet able to apprehend the liberty of faith. We must fight against the
   wolves, but on behalf of the sheep, not against the sheep.

   This Irenicon must meet with the approval of every true Christian,
   whether Catholic or Protestant. It breathes the spirit of a genuine
   disciple of St. Paul. It is full of heroic faith and childlike
   simplicity. It takes rank with the best books of Luther, and rises far
   above the angry controversies of his age, during which he composed it,
   in the full possession of the positive truth and peace of the religion
   of Christ. [246]

   Luther sent the book to Pope Leo X., who was too worldly-minded a man
   to appreciate it; and accompanied the same with a most singular and
   undiplomatic, yet powerful polemic letter, which, if the Pope ever read
   it, must have filled him with mingled feelings of indignation and
   disgust. In his first letter to the Pope (1518), Luther had thrown
   himself at his feet as an obedient son of the vicar of Christ; in his
   second letter (1519), he still had addressed him as a humble subject,
   yet refusing to recant his conscientious convictions: in his third and
   last letter he addressed him as an equal, speaking to him with great
   respect for his personal character (even beyond his deserts), but
   denouncing in the severest terms the Roman See, and comparing him to a
   lamb among wolves, and to Daniel in the den of lions. The Popes, he
   says, are vicars of Christ because Christ is absent from Rome. [247]
   Miltitz and the Augustinian brethren, who urged him to write an
   apologetic letter to Leo, must have been sorely disappointed; for it
   destroyed all prospects of reconciliation, if they had not been
   destroyed already.

   After some complimentary words about Leo, and protesting that he had
   never spoken disrespectfully of his person, Luther goes on to say, --

   "The Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all churches, has become
   the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels,
   the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even Antichrist,
   if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness.

   "Meanwhile you, Leo, are sitting like a lamb in the midst of wolves,
   like Daniel in the midst of lions, and, with Ezekiel, you dwell among
   scorpions. What opposition can you alone make to these monstrous evils?
   Take to yourself three or four of the most learned and best of the
   cardinals. What are these among so many? You would all perish by
   poison, before you could undertake to decide on a remedy. It is all
   over with the court of Rome: the wrath of God has come upon her to the
   uttermost. She hates Councils, she dreads to be reformed, she cannot
   restrain the madness of her impiety; she fills up the sentence passed
   on her mother, of whom it is said, 'We would have healed Babylon, but
   she is not healed; let us forsake her.' It had been your duty, and that
   of your cardinals, to apply a remedy to these evils; but this gout
   laughs at the physician's hand, and the chariot does not obey the
   reins. Under the influence of these feelings I have always grieved that
   you, most excellent Leo, who were worthy of a better age, have been
   made pontiff in this. For the Roman court is not worthy of you and
   those like you, but of Satan himself, who in truth is more the ruler in
   that Babylon than you are.

   "Oh, would that, having laid aside that glory which your most abandoned
   enemies declare to be yours, you were living rather in the office of a
   private priest, or on your paternal inheritance! In that glory none are
   worthy to glory, except the race of Iscariot, the children of
   perdition. For what happens in your court, Leo, except that, the more
   wicked and execrable any man is, the more prosperously he can use your
   name and authority for the ruin of the property and souls of men, for
   the multiplication of crimes, for the oppression of faith and truth,
   and of the whole Church of God? O Leo! in reality most unfortunate, and
   sitting on a most perilous throne: verily I tell you the truth, because
   I wish you well; for if Bernard felt compassion for his Anastasius at a
   time when the Roman See, though even then most corrupt, was as yet
   ruling with better hope than now, why should not we lament, to whom so
   much additional corruption and ruin has happened in three hundred
   years?

   Is it not true that there is nothing under the vast heavens more
   corrupt, more pestilential, more hateful, than the court of Rome? She
   incomparably surpasses the impiety of the Turks, so that in very truth
   she, who was formerly the gate of heaven, is now a sort of open mouth
   of hell, and such a mouth as, under the urgent wrath of God, can not be
   blocked up; one course alone being left to us wretched men,--to call
   back and save some few, if we can, from that Roman gulf.

   "Behold, Leo my father, with what purpose and on what principle it is
   that I have stormed against that seat of pestilence. I am so far from
   having felt any rage against your person, that I even hoped to gain
   favor with you and to aid in your welfare, by striking actively and
   vigorously at that your prison, nay, your hell. For, whatever the
   efforts of all intellects can contrive against the confusion of that
   impious court will be advantageous to you and to your welfare, and to
   many others with you. Those who do harm to her are doing your work;
   those who in every way abhor her are glorifying Christ; in short, those
   are Christians who are not Romans ....

   "In fine, that I may not approach your Holiness empty-handed, I bring
   with me this little book, [248] published under your name, as a good
   omen of the establishment of peace and of good hope. By this you may
   perceive in what pursuits I should prefer and be able to occupy myself
   to more profit, if I were allowed, or had been hitherto allowed, by
   your impious flatterers. It is a small book, if you look to the paper;
   but, unless I mistake, it is a summary of the Christian life put
   together in small compass, if you apprehend its meaning. I, in my
   poverty, have no other present to make you; nor do you need any thing
   else than to be enriched by a spiritual gift. I commend myself to your
   Holiness, whom may the Lord Jesus preserve for ever. Amen.

   "Wittenberg, 6th September, 1520."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [246] Köstlin(Mart. Luth., vol. I. 395 sq.):"Die Schrift von der
   Freiheit eines Christenmenschen ist ein tief-religiöser Traktat ....
   Sie ist ein ruhiges, positives Zeugnis der Wahrheit, vor welcher die
   Waffen und Bande der Finsternis von selbst zu nichte werden müssen. Sie
   zeigt uns den tiefsten Grund des christlichen Bewusstseins und Lebens
   in einer edlen, seligen Ruhe und Sicherheit, welche die über ihm
   hingehenden Wogen und Stürme des Kampfes nicht zu erschüttern vermögen.
   Sie zeigt zugleich, wie fest Luther selbst auf diesem Grunde stand,
   indem er eben im Höhepunkt des Kampfgedränges sie zu verfassen fähig
   war." It is perhaps characteristic that Janssen, who gives one-sided
   extracts from the two other reformatory works of Luther, passes the
   tract on "Christian Liberty" in complete silence. Cardinal Hergenröther
   likewise ignores it.

   [247] "Ein Statthalter ist in Abwesenheit seines Herrn ein
   Statthalter."

   [248] De Libertate Christiana.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 47. The bull of Excommunication. June 15, 1520.

   The bull "Exurge, Domine," in the Bullarium Romanum, ed. CAR.
   Cocquelines, Tom. III., Pars III. (ab anno 1431 ad 1521), pp. 487-493,
   and in Raynaldus (continuator of Baronius): Annal. Eccl., ad ann. 1520,
   no. 51 (Tom. XX. fol. 303-306). Raynaldus calls Luther "apostatam
   nefandissimum," and takes the bull from Cochlaeus, who, besides Eck and
   Ulemberg (a Protestant apostate), is the chief authority for his meager
   and distorted account of the German Reformation. A copy of the original
   edition of the bull is in the Astor Library, New York. See Notes.

   U. v. Hutten published the bull with biting glosses: Bulla Decimi
   Leonis contra errores Lutheri et sequacium, or Die glossirte Bulle (in
   Hutten's Opera, ed. Böcking, V. 301-333; in the Erl. ed. of Luther's
   Op. Lat., IV. 261-304; also in German in Walch, XV. 1691 sqq.; comp.
   Strauss: U. v. Hutten, p. 338 sqq.). The glosses in smaller type
   interrupt the text, or are put on the margin. Luther: Von den neuen
   Eckischen Bullen und Lügen (Sept. 1520); Adv. execrabilem Antichristi
   bullam (Nov. 1520); Wider die Bullen des Endchrists (Nov. 1520; the
   same book as the preceding Latin work, but sharper and stronger); Warum
   des Papsts und seiner Jünger Bücher verbrannt sind (Lat. and Germ.,
   Dec. 1520); all in Walch, XV. fol. 1674-1917; Erl. ed., XXIV. 14-164,
   and Op. Lat. V. 132-238; 251-271. Luther's letters to Spalatin and
   others on the bull of excommunication, in De Wette, I. 518-532.

   Ranke: I. 294-301. Merle D'Aubigné, bk. VI. ch. III. sqq. Hagenbach,
   III. 100-102. Kahnis: I. 306-341. Köstlin: I. 379-382. Kolde: I. 280
   sqq. Janssen: II. 108 sqq.

   After the Leipzig disputation, Dr. Eck went to Rome, and strained every
   nerve to secure the condemnation of Luther and his followers. [249]
   Cardinals Campeggi and Cajetan, Prierias and Aleander, aided him.
   Cajetan was sick, but had himself carried on his couch into the
   sessions of the consistory. With considerable difficulty the bull of
   excommunication was drawn up in May, and after several amendments
   completed June 15, 1520. [250]

   Nearly three years had elapsed since the publication of Luther's
   Ninety-five Theses. In the mean time he had attacked with increasing
   violence the very foundations of the Roman Church, had denounced popery
   as an antichristian tyranny, and had dared to appeal from the Pope to a
   general council, contrary to the decisions of Pius II. and Julius II.,
   who declared such an appeal to be heresy. Between the completion and
   the promulgation of the bull, he went still further in his, "Address to
   the German Nobility," and the book on the "Babylonian Captivity," and
   made a reconciliation impossible except by an absolute surrender, which
   was a moral impossibility for him. Rome could not tolerate Lutheranism
   any longer without ceasing to be Rome. She delayed final action only
   for political and prudential considerations, especially in view of the
   election of a new German Emperor, and the influential voice of the
   Elector Frederick, who was offered, but declined, the imperial crown.

   The bull of excommunication is the papal counter-manifesto to Luther's
   Theses, and condemns in him the whole cause of the Protestant
   Reformation. Therein lies its historical significance. It was the last
   bull addressed to Latin Christendom as an undivided whole, and the
   first which was disobeyed by a large part of it. Instead of causing
   Luther and his friends to be burnt, it was burnt by Luther. It is an
   elaborate document, prepared with great care in the usual heavy,
   turgid, and tedious style of the curia. It breathes the genuine spirit
   of the papal hierarchy, and mingles the tones of priestly arrogance,
   concern for truth, abomination of heresy and schism, fatherly sorrow,
   and penal severity. The Pope speaks as if he were the personal
   embodiment of the truth, the infallible judge of all matters of faith,
   and the dispenser of eternal rewards and punishments.

   He begins with the words of Ps. 74:22: "Arise, O God, plead thine own
   cause: remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee daily. Forget not
   the voice of thine enemies: the tumult of those that rise up against
   thee increaseth continually." He calls St. Peter, St. Paul, and the
   whole body of the saints, to aid against "the boar out of the wood" and
   "the wild beast of the field" that had broken into the vineyard of the
   Lord, to waste and destroy it (Ps. 80:13). He expresses deep sorrow at
   the revival of the Bohemian and other heresies in the noble German
   nation which had received the empire from the Pope, and shed so much
   precious blood against heresy. Then he condemns forty-one propositions
   selected from Luther's books, as heretical, or at least scandalous and
   offensive to pious ears, and sentences all his books to the flames.
   Among the errors named are those relating to the sacramental and
   hierarchical system, especially the authority of the Pope and the
   (Roman) Church. The denial of free will (liberum arbitrium) after the
   fall is also condemned, though clearly taught by St. Augustin. But
   Luther's fundamental doctrine of justification by faith is not
   expressly mentioned. The sentences are torn from the connection, and
   presented in the most objectionable form as mere negations of Catholic
   doctrines. The positive views of the Reformer are not stated, or
   distorted.

   For the person of Luther, the Pope professes fatherly love and
   forbearance, and entreats him once more, by the mercies of God and the
   blood of Christ, to repent and recant within sixty days after the
   publication of the bull in the Brandenburg, Meissen, and Merseburg
   dioceses, and promises to receive him graciously like the prodigal son.
   But failing to repent, he and his adherents will be cut off, as
   withered branches, from the vine of Christ, and be punished as
   obstinate heretics. This means that they shall be burned; for the bull
   expressly condemns the proposition of Luther which denounces the
   burning of heretics as "contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit." All
   princes, magistrates, and citizens are exhorted, on threat of
   excommunication and promise of reward, to seize Luther and his
   followers, and to hand him over to the apostolic chair. Places which
   harbor him or his followers are threatened with the interdict.
   Christians are forbidden to read, print, or publish any of his books,
   and are commanded to burn them.

   We may infer from this document in what a state of intellectual slavery
   Christendom would be at the present time if the papal power had
   succeeded in crushing the Reformation. It is difficult to estimate the
   debt we owe to Martin Luther for freedom and progress.

   The promulgation and execution of the bull were intrusted to two
   Italian prelates, Aleander and Caraccioli, and to Dr. Eck. The personal
   enemy of Luther, who had been especially active in procuring the bull,
   was now sent back in triumph with the dignity of a papal nuncio, and
   even with the extraordinary power of including by name several
   followers of Luther, among whom he singled out Carlstadt and Dolzig of
   Wittenberg, Adelmann of Augsburg, Egranus of Zwickau, and the humanists
   Pirkheimer and Spengler of Nürnberg. The selection of Eck, the most
   unpopular man in Germany, was a great mistake of the Pope, as Roman
   historians admit, and it helped the cause of the Reformation. [251]

   The bull was published and carried out without much difficulty in
   Mayence, Cologne, and Louvain; and Luther's books were committed to the
   flames, with the sanction of the new Emperor. But in Northern Germany,
   which was the proper seat of the conflict, it met with determined
   resistance, and was defeated. Eck printed and placarded the bull at
   Ingolstadt, at Meissen (Sept. 21), at Merseburg (Sept. 25), and at
   Brandenburg (Sept. 29). But in Leipzig where a year before he had
   achieved his boasted victory over Luther in public debate, he was
   insulted by the students (one hundred and fifty had come over from
   Wittenberg), and took flight in a convent; the bull was bespattered,
   and torn to pieces. [252] He fared still worse in Erfurt, where he had
   been ridiculed and held up to scorn as a second Hochstraten in the
   satire Eccius dedolatus (printed at Erfurt in March, 1520): the
   theological faculty refused to publish the bull; and the students threw
   the printed copies into the water, saying, "It is only a water-bubble
   (bulla), let it float on the water." [253]

   Eck sent the bull to the rector of the University of Wittenberg, Oct.
   3, 1520, with the request to prohibit the teaching of any of the
   condemned propositions of Luther, and threatening that, in case of
   disobedience, the Pope would recall all the liberties and privileges of
   the university. The professors and counselors of the Elector declined
   the promulgation for various reasons.

   The Elector Frederick was on the way to Aachen to assist at the
   coronation of Charles V., but was detained at Cologne by the gout.
   There he received the bull from Aleander after the mass, Nov. 4, and
   was urged with eloquent words to execute it, and to punish Luther or to
   send him to Rome; but he cautiously deferred an answer, and sought the
   advice of Erasmus in the presence of Spalatin. The famous scholar gave
   it as his judgment, that Luther's crime consisted in having touched the
   triple crown of the Pope and the stomachs of the monks; [254] he also
   wrote to Spalatin, after the interview, that the Pope's bull offended
   all upright men by its ferocity and was unworthy of a meek vicar of
   Christ. [255] The Elector was thus confirmed in his favorable view of
   Luther. He sent Spalatin to Wittenberg, where some students had left in
   consequence of the bull; but Spalatin was encouraged, and found that
   Melanchthon had about six hundred, Luther four hundred hearers, and
   that the church was crowded whenever Luther preached. A few weeks
   afterward the Pope's bull was burnt.

   NOTES.--THE BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION.

   As I do not find the bull in any of the Protestant or Roman-Catholic
   church histories which I have consulted (except the Annals of
   Raynaldus), I give it here in full as transcribed from an original copy
   in possession of the Astor Library, New York (probably the only one on
   the American Continent), together with facsimiles of titlepage and
   first page (see preceeding pages in text). The pamphlet contains twenty
   pages, small quarto, and is printed continuously, like ancient MSS. I
   have divided it into sections, with headings, and noted the departures
   of Cocquelines and Raynaldus from the original.

   BULLA CONTRA ERRORES MARTINI LUTHERI ET SEQUACIUM.

   Leo Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei. [256]

   Ad perpetuam rel memoriam.

   [Proömium. The Pope invokes God, St. Peter and St. Paul, and all the
   saints, against the new enemies of the Church.]

   Exurge, Domine, et judica causam tuam, memor esto improperiorum tuorum,
   eorum, quae ab insipientibus fiunt totâ die; inclina aurem tuam ad
   preces nostras, quoniam surrexerunt vulpes quaerentes demoliri vineam,
   cujus tu torcular calcasti solus, et ascensurus ad Patrem ejus curam,
   regimen et administrationem Petro tanquam capiti et tuo vicario,
   ejusque successoribus instar triumphantis Ecclesiae commisisti:
   exterminate nititur eam aper de silva, et singularis ferus depasci
   [tur] eam. Exurge, Petre, et pro pastorali cura praefata tibi (ut
   praefertur) divinitus demandata, intende in causam sanctae Romanae
   Ecclesiae, Matris omnium ecclesiarum, se fidei magistrae, quam tu,
   jubente Deo, tuo sanguine consecrasti, contra quam, sicut tu praemonere
   dignatus es, insurgunt magistri mendaces introducentes sectas
   perditionis, sibi celerem interitum superducentes, [257] quorum lingua
   ignis est, inquietum malum, plena veneno mortifero, qui zelum amarum
   habentes et contentiones in cordibus suis, gloriantur, et mendaces sunt
   adversus veritatem. Exurge tu quoque, quaesumus, Paule, qui eam tuâ
   doctrinâ et pari martyrio illuminasti atque illustrasti. Jam enim
   surgit novus Porphyrius; quia sicut ille olim sanctos Apostolos injuste
   momordit, ita hic sanctos Pontifices praedecessores nostros contra tuam
   doctrinam eos non obsecrando, sed increpando, mordere, lacerare, ac ubi
   causae suae [258] diffidit, ad convicia accedere non veretur, more
   haereticorum, quorum (ut inquit Hieronymus) ultimum presidium est, ut
   cum conspiciant causas suas damnatum iri, incipiant virus serpentis
   linguâ diffundere; et cum se victos conspiciant, ad contuinelias
   prosilire. Nam licet haereses esse ad exercitationem fidelium in
   dixeris oportere, eas tamen, ne incrementum accipiant, neve vulpeculae
   coalescant, in ipso ortu, te intercedente et adjuvante, extingui
   necesse est.

   Exurgat denique, [259] omnis Sanctorum, ac reliqua universalis
   Ecclesia, cujus vera sacrarum literarum interpretatione posthabitâ,
   quidam, quorum mentem pater mendacii excaecavit, ex veteri haereticorum
   instituto, apud semetipsos sapientes, scripturas easdem aliter quam
   Spiritus sanctus flagitet, proprio dumtaxat sensu ambitionis, auraeque
   popularis causâ, teste Apostolo, interpretantur, immo vero torquent et
   adulterant, ita ut juxta Hieronymum jam non sit evangelium Christi, sed
   hominis, aut quod pejus est, diaboli. Exurgat, inquam, praefata
   Ecclesia sancta Dei, et una cum beatissimis Apostolis praefatis [260]
   apud Deum omnipotentem intercedat, ut purgatis ovium suarum erroribus,
   eliminatisque a fidelium finibus haeresibus universis Ecclesiae suae
   sanctae pacem et unitatem conservare dignetur.

   [The errors of the Greeks and Bohemians revived by Luther and his
   followers.]

   Dudum siquidem [261] quod prae animi angustia et moerore exprimere vix
   possumus, fide dignorum relatu ac famâ publicâ referente ad nostrum
   pervenit auditum, immo vero, proh dolor! oculis nostris vidimus ac
   legimus, multos et varios errores quosdam videlicet jam per Concilia ac
   Praedec-essorum nostrorum constitutiones damnatos, haeresim etiam
   Graecorum et Bohemicam expresse continentes: alios vero respective, vel
   haereticos, vel falsos, vel scandalosos, vel piarum aurium offensivos,
   vel simplicium mentium seductivos, a falsis fidei cultoribus, qui per
   superbam curiositatem mundi gloriam cupientes, contra Apostoli
   doctrinam plus sapere volunt, quam oporteat; quorum garrulitas (ut
   inquit Hieronymus) sine scripturarum auctoritate non haberet fidem,
   nisi viderentur perversam doctrinam etiam divinis testimoniis, male
   tamen interpretatis, roborare: a quorum oculis Dei timor recessit,
   humani generis hoste suggerente, noviter suscitatos, et nuper apud
   quosdam leviores in inclyta natione Germanica seminatos.

   [The Germans, who received the empire from the Pope, were formerly most
   zealous against heresy, but now give birth to the most dangerous
   errors.]

   Quod eo magis dolemus ibi [262] evenisse, quod eandem nationem et nos
   et Praedecessores nostri in visceribus semper gesserimus caritatis. Nam
   post translatum ex Grecis a Romana Ecclesia in eosdem Germanos
   imperium, iidem Praedecessores nostri et nos ejusdem Ecclesiae
   advocates defensoresque ex eis semper accepimus; quos quidem Germanos,
   Catholicae veritatis vere germanos, constat haeresum [haeresium]
   acerrimos oppugnatores [263] semper fuisse: cujus rei testes sunt
   laudabiles illae constitutiones Germanorum Imperatorum pro libertate
   Ecclesiae, proque expellendis exterminandisque ex omni Germania
   haereticis, sub gravissimis poenis, etiam amissionis terrarum et
   dominiorum, contra receptatores vel non expellentes olim editae, et à
   nostris Praedecessoribus confirmatae, quae si hodie servarentur, et nos
   et ipsi utique hae molestiâ careremus. Testis est in Concilio
   Constantiensi Hussitarum ac Wiccleffistarum, necnon Hieronymi Pragensis
   damnata ac punita perfidia. Testis est totiens contra Bohemos
   Germanorum sanguis effusus. Testis denique est praedictorum errorum,
   seu multorum ex eis per Coloniensem et Lovaniensem Universitates,
   utpote agri dominici piissimas religiosissimasque cultrices, non minus
   docta quam vera ac sancta confutatio, reprobatio, et damnatio. Multa
   quoque alia allegare possemus, quae, ne historiam texere videamur,
   praetermittenda censuimus.

   Pro pastorals igitur officii, divinâ gratiâ, nobis injuncti cura, quam
   gerimus, praedictorum errorum virus pestiferum ulterius tolerare seu
   dissimulare sine Christianae, religionis nota, atque orthodoxae fidei
   injuria nullo modo possumus. Eorum autem errorum aliquos praesentibus
   duximus inferendos, quorum tenor sequitur, et est talis: --

   [Forty-one heretical sentences selected from Luther's writings.]

   I. Haeretica sententia est, sed usitata, Sacramenta novae legis
   justificantem gratiam illis dare, qui non ponunt obicem.

   II. In puero post baptismum negare remanens peccatum, est Paulum et
   Christum simul conculcare.

   III. Fomes peccati, etiam si nullum adsit actuale peccatum, moratur
   exeuntem a corpore animam ab ingressu coeli.

   IV. Imperfecta caritas morituri fert secum necessario magnum timorem,
   qui se solo satis est facere poenam purgatorii, et impedit introitum
   regni.

   V. Tres esse partes poenitentiae, contritionem, confessionem, et
   satisfactionem, non est fundatum in sacra scriptura, nec in antiquis
   sanctis Christianis doctoribus.

   VI. Contritio, quae paratus per discussionem, collectionem, [264] et
   deteststionem peccatorum, qua quis recogitat annos suos in amaritudine
   animae suae, ponderando peccatorum gravitatem, multitudinem,
   foeditatem, amissionem aeternae beatitudinis, ac aeternae damnationis
   acquisitionem, haec contritio facit hypocritam, immo magis peccatorem.

   VII. Verissimum est proverbium, et omnium doctrina de contritionibus
   hucusque data praestantius, de cetero non facere, summa poenitentia,
   optima poenitentia, nova vita.

   VIII. Nullo modo praesumas confiteri peccata venialia, sed nec omnia
   mortalia, quia impossibile est, ut omnia mortalia cognoscas: unde in
   primitiva Ecclesia solum manifesta mortalia confitebantur.

   IX. Dum volumus omnia pure confiteri, nihil aliud facimus, quam quod
   misericordiae Dei nihil volumus relinquere ignoscendum.

   X. Peccata non sunt illi remissa, nisi remittente sacerdote credat sibi
   remitti; immo peccatum maneret nisi remissum crederet; non enim
   sufficit remissio peccati et gratiae donatio, sed oportet etiam credere
   esse remissum.

   XI. Nullo modo confidas absolvi propter tuam contritionem, sed propter
   verbum Christi: "Quodcumque solveris." etc. Sic, inquam, confide, si
   sacerdotis obtinueris absolutionem, et crede fortiter te absolutum; et
   absolutus vere eris, [265] quidquid sit de contritione.

   XII. Si per impossibile confessus non esset contritus, aut sacerdos non
   serio, sed joco absolveret, si tamen credat se absolutum, verissime est
   absolutus.

   XIII. In sacramento poenitentiae se remissione culpae non plus facit
   Papa aut episcopus, quam infimus sacerdos; immo ubi non est sacerdos,
   aeque tantum quilibet Christianus, etiam si mulier, aut puer esset.

   XIV. Nullus debet sacerdote respondere, se esse contritum, nec [266]
   sacerdos requirere.

   XV. Magnus est error eorum, qui ad sacramenta Eucharistiae accedunt
   huic innixi, quod sint confessi, quod non sint sibi conscii alicujus
   peccati mortalis; quod praemiserint orationes suas et praeparatoria;
   omnes illi ad [267] judicium sibi manducant et bibunt; sed si credant
   et confidant se gratiam ibi consecuturos, haec sola fides facit eos
   puros et dignos.

   XVI. Consultum videtur, quod Ecclesia in communi concilio [268]
   statueret, laicos sub utraque specie communicandos; nec Bohemi
   communicantes sub utraque specie [269] sunt haeretici, sed schismatici.

   XVII. Thesauri Ecclesiae, unde Papa dat indulgentias, non sunt merita
   Christi et sanctorum.

   XVIII. Indulgentiae sunt piae fraudes fidelium, et remissiones bonorum
   onerum, et sunt de numero eorum, quae licent, et non de numero eorum,
   quae expediunt.

   XIX. Indulgentiae his, qui veraciter eas consequuntur, non valent ad
   remissionem poenae pro peccatis actualibus debitae ad divinam
   justitiam.

   XX. Seducuntur credentes indulgentias esse salutares, et ad fructum
   spiritûs utiles.

   XXI. Indulgentiae necessariae sunt solum publicis criminibus, et
   proprie conceduntur duris solummodo et impatientibus.

   XXII. Sex generibus hominum indulgentiae nec sunt necessariae, nec
   utiles; videlicet mortuis seu morituris, infirmis, legitime impeditis,
   his qui non commiserunt crimina, his qui crimina commiserunt, sed non
   publica, his qui meliora operantur.

   XXIII. Excommunicationes sunt tantum externae poenae, nec privant
   hominem communibus spiritualibus Ecclesiae orationibus.

   XXIV. Docendi sunt Christiani plus diligere excommunicationem quam
   timere.

   XXV. Romanus Pontifex, Petri successor, non est Christi vicarius super
   omnes mundi ecclesias ab ipso Christo in beato Petro institutus.

   XXVI. Verbum Christi ad Petrum: "Quodcumque solveris super terram,"
   etc., extenditur duntaxat ad ligata ab ipso Petro.

   XXVII. Certum est in manu Ecclesiae aut Papae prorsus non esse statuere
   articulos fidei, immo nec leges morum, seu bonorum operum.

   XXVIII. Si Papa cum magna parte Ecclesiae sic vel sic sentiret, nec
   etiam erraret, adhuc non est peccatum aut haeresis contrarium sentire,
   praesertim in re non necessaria ad salutem, donec fuerit per Concilium
   universale alterum reprobatum, alterum approbatum.

   XXIX. Via nobis facta est enarrandi auctoritatem Conciliorum, et libere
   contradicendi eorum gestis, et judicandi eorum decreta, et confidenter
   confitendi quidquid verum videtur, sive probatum fuerit, sive
   reprobatum a quocunque concilio.

   XXX. Aliqui articuli Joannis Husz condemnati in concilio Constantiensi
   sunt Christianissimi, verissimi et evangelici, quos non universalis
   Ecclesia posset damnare.

   XXXI. In omni opere bono Justus peccat.

   XXXII. Opus bonum optime factum veniale est peccatum.

   XXXIII. Haereticos comburi est contra voluntatem Spiritûs. [270]

   XXXIV. Praeliari adversus Turcas est repugnare Deo visitanti
   iniquitates nostras per illos.

   XXXV. Nemo est certus se non semper peccare mortaliter propter
   occultissimum superbaa vitium.

   XXXVI. Liberum arbitrium post peccatum est res de solo titulo, et dum
   facit quod in se est, peccat mortaliter.

   XXXVII. Purgatorium non potest probari ex sacra scriptura, quae sit in
   canone.

   XXXVIII. Animae in purgatorio non sunt securae de earum salute, saltem
   omnes; nec probatum est ullis aut rationibus aut scripturis, ipsas esse
   extra statum merendi, aut [271] agendae caritatis.

   XXXIX. Animae in purgatorio peccant sine intermissione, quamdiu
   quaerunt requiem, et horrent poenas.

   XL. Animae ex purgatorio liberatae suffragiis viventium minus beantur,
   quam si per se satisfecissent.

   XLI. Praelati ecclesiastica et principes seculares non malefacerent si
   omnes saccos mendicitatis [272] delerent.

   [These propositions are condemned as heretical, scandalous, offensive,
   and contrary to Catholic truth.]

   Qui quidem errores respective quam sint pestiferi, quam perniciosi,
   quam scandalosi, quam piarum et simplicium mentium seductivi, quam
   denique sint contra omnem charitatem, ac sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae
   matris omnium fidelium et magistrae fidei reverentiam atque nervum
   ecclesiasticae disciplines, obedientiam scilicet, quae fons est et
   origo omnium virtutum, sine qua facile unusquisque infidelis esse
   convincitur, nemo sanae mentis ignorat. Nos Igitur in praemissis,
   utpote gravissimis, propensius (ut decet) procedere, necnon hujusmodi
   pesti morboque canceroso, ne in agro Dominico tanquam vepris nociva
   ulterius serpat, viam praecludere cupientes, habita super praedictis
   erroribus, et eorum singulis diligenti trutinatione, discussione, ac
   districto examine, maturaque deliberatione, omnibusque rite pensatis ac
   saeepius ventilatis cum venerabilibus fratribus nostris sanctae Romanae
   Ecclesiae Cardinalibus, ac regularium ordinum Prioribus, seu ministris
   generalibus, plurisbusque aliis sacrae theologiae, necnon utriusque
   juris professoribus sive magistris, et quidem peritissimis, reperimus
   eosdem errores respective (ut praefertur) aut articulos non esse
   catholicos, nec tanquam tales esse dogmatizandos, sed contra Ecclesivae
   Catholicae doctrinam sive traditionem, atque ab ea veram divinarum
   scripturarum receptam interpretationem, cujus auctoritati ita
   acquiescendum censuit Augustinus, ut dixerit, se Evangelio non fuisse
   crediturum, nisi Ecclesiae Catholicae intervenisset auctoritas. Nam ex
   eisdem erroribus, vel eorum aliquo, vel aliquibus, palam sequitur,
   eandem Ecclesiam, quae Spiritu sancto regitur, errare, et semper
   errasse. Quod est utique contra illud, quod Christus discipulis suis in
   ascensione sua (ut in sancto Evangelio Matthaei legitur) promisit
   dicens: "Ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem seculi;" necnon
   contra Sanctorum Patrum determinationes, Conciliorum quoque et summorum
   Pontificum expressas ordinationes seu canones, quibus non obtemperasse
   omnium haeresum et schismatum, teste Cypriano, fomes et causa semper
   fuit.

   De eorundem itaque venerabilium fratrum nostrorum consilio et assensu,
   se omnium et singulorum praedictorum maturâ deliberatione praedicta,
   auctoritate omnipotentis Dei, et beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli,
   et nostra, praefatos omnes et singulos articulos seu errores, tanquam
   (ut praemittitur) respective haereticos, aut scandalosos, aut falsos,
   aut piarum aurium offensivos, vel simplicium mentium seductivos, et
   veritate Catholicae obviantes, damnamus, reprobamus, ac omnino
   rejicimus, ac pro damnatis, reprobatis, et rejectis ab omnibus
   utriusque sexûs Christi fidelibus haberi debere, harum serie decernimus
   et declaramus. [273]

   [Prohibition of the defence and publication of these errors.]

   Inhibentes in virtute sanctae obedientiae ac sub majoris
   excommunicationis latae sententiae, necnon quoad Ecclesiasticas et
   Regulares personas, Episcopalium omnium, etiam Patriarchalium,
   Metropolitanarum et aliarum Cathedralium Ecclesiarum, Monasteriorum
   quoque et Prioratuum etiam Conventualium et quarumcunque [274]
   dignitatum aut Beneficiorum Ecclesiasticorum, Saecularium aut quorum
   vis Ordinum Regularium, privationis et inhabilitatis ad illa, et alia
   in posterum obtinenda. Quo vero ad Conventus, Capitula seu domos, aut
   pia loca saecularium, vel regularium, etiam Mendicantium, necnon
   Universitatis etiam studiorum generalium quorumcunque privilegiorum
   indultorum a Sede Apostolica, vel ejus Legatis, aut alias quomodolibet
   habitorum, vel obtentorum, cujuscumque tenoris existant: necnon nominis
   et potestatis studium generale tenendi, legendi, ac interpretandi
   quasvis scientias et facultates et inhabilitatis ad illa et alia in
   posterum obtinenda: Praedicationis quoque officii ac amissionis studii
   generalis et omnium privilegiorum ejusdem. Quo vero ad saeculares
   ejusdem excommunicationis, necnon amissionis cujuscumque emphyteosis,
   seu quorumcunque feudorum, tam a Romana Ecclesia, quam alias
   quomodolibet obtentorum, ac etiam inhabilitatis ad illa et alia in
   posterum obtinenda. Necnon quo ad omnes et singulos superius nominatos,
   inhibitionis Ecclesiasticae sepulturae inhabilitatisque ad omnes et
   singulos actus legitimos, infamiae ac diffidationis et criminis laesae
   majestatis, et haereticorum et fautorum eorundem in jure expressis
   poenis, eo ipso et absque ulteriori declaratione per omnes et singulos
   supradictos, si (quod absit) contrafecerint, incurrendis. A quibus
   vigore cujuscumque facultatis et clausularum etiam in confessionalibus
   quibusvis personis, sub quibusvis verborum formis contentarum, nisi a
   Romano Pontifice vel alio ab eo ad id in specie facultatem habente,
   praeterquam in mortis artlculo constitute, absolvi nequeant. Omnibus et
   singulis utriusque sexus Christifidelibus, tam Laicis quam Clericis,
   Saecularibus et quorumvis Ordinum Regularibus, et aliis quibuscumque
   personis cujuscumque status, gradus, vel conditionis existant, et
   quarumque ecclesiastica vel mundana praefulgeant dignitate, etiam S. R.
   E. Cardinalibas, Patriarchis, Primatibus, Archiepiscopis, Episcopis,
   Patriarchalium, Metropolitanarum et aliaram Cathedralium, Collegiatarum
   ac inferiorum ecclesiarum Praelatis, Clericis aliisque personis
   Eccleslasticis, Saecularibus et quorumvis Ordinum etiam Mendicantium
   regularibus, Abbatibus, Prioribus vel Ministris generalibus vel
   particularibus, Fratribus, seu Religiosis, exemptis et non exemptis:
   Studiorum quoque Universitatibus Saecularibus et quorumvis Ordinum
   etiam Mendicantium regularibus, necnon Regibus, Imperatori,
   Electoribus, Principibus, Ducibus, Marchionibus, Comitibus, Baronibus,
   Capitaneis, Conductoribus, Domicellis, omnibusque Officialibus,
   Judicibus, Notariis Ecelesiasticis et Saecularibus, Communitatibus,
   Universitatibus, Potentatibus, Civitatibus, Castris, Terris et locis,
   seu eorum vel earum civibus, habitatoribus et incolis, ac quibusvis
   aliis personis Ecclesiasticis, vel Regularibus (ut praefertur) per
   universum orbem, ubicumque, praesertim in Alemania existentibus, vel
   pro tempore futures, ne praefatos errores, aut eorum aliquos,
   perversamque doctrinam hujusmodi asserere, affirmare, defendere,
   praedicare, aut illi quomodolibet, publice vel occulte, quovis quaesito
   ingenio vel colore, tacite vel expresse favere praesumant.

   [The writings of Luther are forbidden, and ordered to be burnt.]

   Insuper quia errores praefati, et plures alii continentur in libellis
   seu scriptis Martini Luther, dictos libellos, et omnia dicti Martini
   scripta, seu praedicationes in Latino, vel quocumque alio idiomate
   reperiantur, in quibus dicti errores, seu eorum aliquis continentur,
   similiter damnamus, reprobamus, atque omnino rejicimus, et pro
   damnatis, reprobatis, ac rejectis (ut praefertur) haberi volumus,
   mandantes in virtute sanctae obedientiae et sub poenis praedictis eo
   ipso incurrendis, omnibus et singulis utriusque sexûs Christifidelibus
   superius nominatis, ne hujusmodi scripta, libellos, praedicationes, seu
   schedulas, vel in eis contenta capitula, errores, aut articulos
   supradictos continentia legere, asserere, praedicare, laudare,
   imprimere, publicare, sive defendere per se vel alium, seu alios
   directe vel indirecte, tacite vel expresse, publice vel occulte, aut in
   domibus suis sive aliis publicis vel privatis locis tenere quoquo modo
   praesumant; quinimmo illa statim post harum publicationem ubicumque
   fuerint, per ordinaries et alios supradictos diligenter quaesita,
   publice et solemniter in praesentia cleri et populi sub omnibus et
   singulis supradictis poenis comburant.

   [Martin Luther was often warned with paternal charity to desist from
   these errors, and cited to Rome with the promise of safe-conduct.]

   Quod vero ad ipsum Martinum attinet, (bone Deus) quid praetermisimus,
   quid non fecimus, quid paternae charitatis omisimus, ut eum ab
   hujusmodi erroribus revocaremus? Postquam enim ipsum citavimus, mitius
   cum eo procedere volentes, illum invitavimus, atque tam per diversos
   tractatus cum legato nostro habitos, quam per literas nostras hortati
   fuimus, ut a paedictis erroribus discederet, aut oblato etiam salvo
   conductu et pecuniâ ad iter necessariâ, sine metu seu timore aliquo
   quem perfecta charitas foras mittere debuit, veniret, ac Salvatoris
   nostri Apostolique Pauli exemplo, non occulto, sed palam et in facie
   loqueretur. Quod si fecisset, pro certe (ut arbitramur) ad cor reversus
   errores suos cognovisset, nec in Romana curia, quam tantopere vanis
   malevolorum rumoribus plusquam oportuit tribuendo vituperat, tot
   reperisset errata; docuissemusque cum luce clarius, sanctos Romanos
   Pontifices, quos praeter omnem modestiam injuriose lacerat, in suis
   canonibus, seu constitutionibus, quas mordere nititur, nunquam errasse;
   quia juxta prophetam, nec in Galahad resina, nec medicus deest. Sed
   obaudivit semper, et praedicta citatione omnibus et singulis
   supradictis spretis venire contempsit, ac usque in praesentem diem
   contumax, atque animo indurate censuras ultra annum sustinuit: et quod
   deterius est, addens mala malis, de citatione hujusmodi notitiam
   habens, in vocem temerariae appellationis prorupit ad futurum concilium
   contra constitutionem Pii Secundi ac Julii Secundi, praedecessorum
   nostrorum, qua cavetur, taliter appellantes haereticorum poenâ
   plectendos (frustra etiam Consilii auxilium imploravit, qui illi se non
   credere palam profitetur); ita ut contra ipsum tanquam de fide notorie
   suspectum, immo vere haereticum absque ulterori citatione vel mora ad
   condemnationem et damnationem ejus tanquam haeretici, ac ad omnium et
   singularum suprascriptarum poenarum et censurarum severitatem procedere
   possemus.

   [Luther is again exhorted to repent, and promised the reception of the
   prodigal son.]

   Nihilominus de eorundem fratrum nostroruin consilio, omnipotentis Dei
   imitantes clementiam, qui non vult mortem peccatoris, sed magis ut
   convertatur et vivat, omnium injuriarum hactenus nobis et Apostolicqae
   sedi illatarum obliti, omni qua possumus pietate uti decrevimus, et
   quantum in nobis est, agere, ut propositâ mansuetudinis viâ ad cor
   revertatur, et a praedictis recedat erroribus, ut ipsum tanquam filium
   illum prodigum ad gremium Ecclesiae revertentem benigne recipiamus.
   Ipsum igitur Martinum et quoscumque ei adhaerentes, ejusque
   receptatores et fautores per viscera misericordiae Dei nostri, et per
   aspersionem sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi, quo et per quem
   humani generis redemptio, et sanctae matris Ecclesiae aedificatio facta
   est, ex tote corde hortamur et obsecramus, ut ipsius Ecclesiae pacem,
   unitatem et veritatem, pro qua ipse Salvator tam instanter oravit ad
   Patrem, turbare desistant, et a praedictis, tam perniciosis erroribus
   prorsus abstineant, inventuri apud nos si effectualiter paruerint, et
   paruisse per legitima documenta nos certificaverint, paternae
   charitatis affectum, et apertum mansuetudinis et clementiae fontem.

   [Luther is suspended from the functions of the ministry, and given
   sixty days, after the publication of the bull, to recant.]

   Inhibentes nihilominus eidem Martino ex nunc, ut interim ab omni
   praedicatione seu praedicationis officio omnino desistat. Alioquin in
   ipsum Martinum si forte justitiae et virtutis amor a peccato non
   retrahat, indulgentiaeque spes ad poenitentiam non reducat, poenarum
   terror coërceat disciplinae: eundem Martinum ejusque adhaerentes
   complices, fautores, et receptatores tenore praesentium requirimus, et
   monemus in virtute sanctae obedientiae, sub praedictis omnibus et
   singulis poenis eo ipso incurrendis districte praecipiendo mandamus,
   quatenus infra sexaginta dies, quorum viginti pro primo, viginti pro
   secundo, et reliquos viginti dies pro tertio et peremptorio termino
   assignamus ab affixione praesentium in locis infrascriptis immediate
   sequentes numerandos, ipse Martinus, complices, fautores, adhaerentes,
   et receptatores praedicti a praefatis erroribus, eorumque
   praedicatione, ac publications, et assertione, defensione quoque et
   librorum seu scripturarum editione super eisdem, sive eorum aliquo
   omnino desistant, librosque ac scripturas omnes et singulas praefatos
   errores seu eorum aliquos quomodolibet continentes comburant, vel
   comburi faciant. Ipse etiam Martinus errores et assertiones hujusmodi
   omnino revocet, ac de revocatione hujusmodi per publica documenta in
   forma juris valida in manibus duorum Praelatorum consignata ad nos
   infra alios similes sexaginta dies transmittenda, vel per ipsummet (si
   ad nos venire voluerit, quod magis placeret) cum praefato plenissimo
   salvo conductu, quem ex nunc concedimus deferenda, nos certiores
   efficiat, ut de ejus vera obedientia nullus dubitationis scrupulus
   valeat remanere.

   [In case Luther and his followers refuse to recant within sixty days,
   they will be excommunicated, and dealt with according to law.]

   Alias si (quod absit) Martinus praefatus, complices, fautores,
   adhaerentes et receptatores praedicti secus egerint, seu proemissa
   omnia et singula infra terminum praedictum cum effectu non
   adimpleverint, Apostoli imitantes doctrinam, qui haereticum hominem
   post primam et secundam correctionem vitandum docuit, ex nunc prout ex
   tunc, et e converso eundem Martinum, complices, adhaerentes, fautores
   et receptatores praefatos et eorum quemlibet tanquam aridos palmites in
   Christo non manentes, sed doctrinam contrariam, Catholicae fidei
   inimicam, sive scandalosam seu damnatam, in non modicam offensam
   divinae majestatis, ac universalis Ecclesiae, et fidei Catholicae
   detrimentum et scandalum dogmatizantes, claves quoque Ecclesiae
   vilipendentes, notorios et pertinaces haereticos eâdem auctoritate
   fuisse et esse declarantes, eosdem ut tales harum serie condemnamus, et
   eos pro talibus haberi ab omnibus utriusque sexus Christi fidelibus
   supradictis volumus et mandamus. Eosque omnes et singulos omnibus
   supradictis et aliis contra tales a jure inflictis poenis praesentium
   tenore subjicimus, et eisdem irretitos fuisse et esse decernimus et
   declaramus.

   [All Catholics are admonished not to read, print, or publish any book
   of Luther and his followers, but to burn them.]

   Inhibemus praeterea sub omnibus et singulis praemissis poenis eo ipso
   incurrendis, omnibus et singulis Christi fidelibus superius nominatis,
   ne scripta, etiam praefatos errores non continentia, ab eodem Martino
   quomodolibet condita vel edita, aut condenda vel edenda, seu eorum
   aliqua tanquam ab homine orthodoxae fidei inimico, atque ideo
   vehementer suspecta, et ut ejus memoria omnino deleatur de
   Christifidelium consortio, legere, asserere, praedicare, laudare,
   imprimere, publicare, sive defendere, per se vel alium seu alios,
   directe vel indirecte, tacite vel expresse, publice vel occulte, seu in
   domibus suis, sive aliis locis publicis vel privatis tenere quoquomodo
   praesumant, quinimmo illa comburant, ut praefertur. [275]

   [Christians are forbidden, after the excommunication, to hold any
   intercourse with Luther and his followers, or to give them shelter, on
   pain of the interdict; and magistrates are commanded to arrest and send
   them to Rome.]

   Monemus insuper omnes et singulos Christifideles supradictos, sub eadem
   excommunicationis latae sententiae poena, ut haereticos praedictos
   declaratos et condemnatos, mandatis nostris non obtemperantes, post
   lapsum termini supradicti evitent et quantum in eis est, evitari
   faciant, nec cum eisdem, vel eorum aliquo commercium aut aliquam
   conversationem seu communionem habeant, nec eis necessaria ministrent.

   Ad majorem praeterea dicti Martini suorumque complicum, fautorum et
   adhaerentium ac receptatorum praedictorum, sic post lapsum termini
   praedicti declaratorum haereticorum et condemnatorum confusionem
   universis et singulis utriusque sexus Christifidelibus Patriarchis,
   Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, Patriarchalium, Metropolitanarum, et aliarum
   cathedralium, collegiatarum ac inferiorum ecclesiarum Praelatis,
   Capitulis, aliisque personis ecclesiastica, saecularibus et quoramvis
   Ordinum etiam Mendicantium (praesertim ejus congregationis cujus dictus
   Martinus est professus, et in qua degere vel morari dicitur)
   regularibus exemptis et non exemptis, necnon universis et singulis
   principibus, quacumque ecclesiastica vel mundana fulgentibus dignitate
   Regibus, Imperatoris [276] Electoribus, Ducibus, Marchionibus,
   Comitibus, Baronibus, Capitaneis, Conductoribus, Domicellis,
   Communitatibus, Universitatibus, Potentatibus, Civitatibus, Terris,
   Castris et locis, seu eorum habitatoribus, civibus et incolis
   omnibusque aliis et singulis supradictis per universum Orbem,
   praesertim in eadem Alemania constitutis mandamus, quatenus sub
   praedictis omnibus et singulis poenis, ipsi vel eorum quilibet,
   praefatum Martinum, complices, adhaerentes, receptantes et fautores
   personaliter capiant et captos ad nostram instantiam retineant et ad
   nos mittant: reportaturi pro tam bono opere a nobis et Sede Apostolica
   remunerationem, praemiumque condignum vel saltem eos et eorum
   quemlibet, de Metropolitanis, Cathedralibus, Collegiatis, et aliis
   ecclesiis, domibus, Monasteriis, Conventibus, Civitatibus, Dominiis,
   Universitatibus, Communitatibus, Castris, Terris, ac locis respective,
   tam clerici et regulares quam laici omnes et singuli supradicti omnino
   expellant.

   [The places which harbor Luther and his followers are threatened with
   the Interdict.]

   Civitates vero, Dominia, Terras, Castra, Villas, comitatus, fortilicia,
   Oppida et loca quaecumque ubilibet consistentia earum et eorum
   respective Metropolitanas, Cathedrales, Collegiatas et alias ecclesias,
   Monasteria, Prioratus, Domus, Conventus et loca religiosa vel pia
   cujuscunque ordinis (tit praefertur) ad quae praefatum Martinum vel
   aliquem ex praedictis declinare contigerit, quamdiu ibi permanserint et
   triduo post recessum, ecclesiastico subjicimus interdicto.

   [Provision for the promulgation and execution of the bull.]

   Et ut praemissa omnibus innotescant, mandamus insuper universis
   Patriarchis, Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, Patriarchalium,
   Metropolitanarum et aliarum cathedralium ac collegiatarum ecclesiarum
   Praelatis, Capitulis aliisque personis ecclesiasticis, saecularibus et
   quorumvis Ordinum supradictorum regularibus, fratribus religiosis,
   monachis exemptis et non exemptis supradictis, ubilibet, praesertim in
   Alemania constitutis quatenus ipsi vel eorum quilibet sub similibus
   censuris et poenis co ipso incurrendis, Martinum omnesque et singulos
   supradictos qui elapso teremo hujusmodi mandatis seu monitis nostris
   non paruerint, in eorum ecclesiis, dominicis et aliis festivis diebus,
   dum inibi major populi multitudo ad divina convenerit, declaratos
   haereticos et condemnatos publice nuncient faciantque et mandent ab
   aliis nunciari et ab omnibus evitari. Necnon omnibus Christifidelibus
   ut eos evitent, pari modo sub praedictis censuris et poenis. Et
   praesentes literas vel earum transumptum sub forma infrascripta factum
   in eorum ecclesiis, monasteriis, domibus, conventibus et aliis locis
   legi, publicare atque affigi faciant. Excommunicamus quoque et
   anathematizamus omnes et singulos cujuscumque status, gradiis,
   conditionis, prae-eminentiae, dignitatis aut excellentiae fuerint qui
   quo minus praesentes literae vel earum transumpta, copiae seu
   exemplaria in suis terris et dominiis legi, affigi et publicare
   possint, fecerint vel quoquomodo procuraverint per se vel alium seu
   alios, publice vel occulte, directe vel indirecte, tacite vel expresse.

   Postremo quia difficile foret praesentes literas ad singula quaeque
   loca deferri in quibus necessarium foret, volumus et apostolica
   authoritate decernimus, quod earum transumptis manu publici notarii
   confectis et subscriptis, vel in alma Urbe impressis et sigillo
   alicujus ecclesiastici Praelati munitis ubique stetur et plena fides
   adhibeatur, prout originalibus literis staretur, si forent exhibitae
   vel ostensae.

   Et ne praefatus Martinus omnesque alii supradicti, quos praesentes
   literae quomodolibet concernunt, ignorantiam earundem literarum et in
   eis contentorum omnium et singulorum praetendere valeant, literas ipsas
   in Basilicas Principis Apostolorum et Cancellariae Apostolicae, necnon
   Cathedralium ecclesiarum Brandeburgen., Misnen. et Morspergen.
   [Merseburg] valvis affigi et publicari debere [277] volumus,
   decernentes, quod earundem literarum publicatio sic facta, supradictum
   Martinum omnesque alios et singulos praenominatos, quos literae
   hujusmodi quomodolibet concernunt, perinde arctent, ac si literae ipsae
   die affixionis et publicationis hujusmodi eis personaliter lectae et
   intimatae forent, cum non sit verisimile, quod ea quae tam patenter
   fiunt debeant apud eos incognita remanere.

   Non obstantibus constitutionibus et ordinationibus apostolicis, seu si
   supradictis omnibus et singulis vel eorum alicui aut quibusvis aliis a
   Sede Apostolica praedicta, vel ab ea potestatem habentibus sub quavis
   forma, etiam confessionali et cum quibusvis etiam fortissimis
   clausulis, aut ex quavis causa, seu grandi consideratione, indultum vel
   concessum existat, quod interdici, suspendi, vel excommunicari non
   possint per literas Apostolicas, non facientes plenam et expressam ac
   de verbo ad verbum, non autem per clausulas generates id importantes,
   de indulto hujusmodi mentionem, ejusdem indulti tenores, causas [278]
   et formas perinde ac si de verbo ad verbum insererentur, ita ut omnino
   tollatur, praesentibus pro expressis habentes.

   Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam nostrae damnationis,
   reprobationis, rejectionis, decreti, declarationis, inhibitionis,
   voluntatis, mandati, hortationis, obsecrationis, requisitionis,
   monitionis, assignationis, concessionis, condemnationis, subjectionis,
   excommunicationis, et anathematizationis infringere, vel ei ausu
   temerario contraire. Si quis autem hoc attentare praesumpserit,
   indignationem Omnipotentis Dei ac Beatorum Petri et Pauli Apostolorum
   ejus se noverit incursurum.

   Dat. Romae apud S. Petrum anno incarnationis Dominicae Milesimo
   Quingentesimo Vigesimo. XVII. Kls. Julii. Pontificatus Nostri Anno
   Octavo.

   Visa. R. Milanesius.

   Albergatus.

   Impressum Romae per Iacobum Mazochium

   De Mandato S. D. N. Papae. [279]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [249] As Luther said, to rouse "the abyss of hell" (Abgrund der Hölle)
   against him. Eck seems to have been acting also in the interest of the
   banking firm of Fugger in Augsburg, which carried on the financial
   transactions between Germany and Italy, including the transmission of
   indulgence money. See Ranke, I. 297.

   [250] Ranke (I. 298) dates the bull from June 16; Walch (XV. 1691) from
   June 24; but most historians (Gieseler, Kahnis, Köstlin, Lenz, Janssen,
   Hergenröther, etc.) from June 15. The last is correct, for the bull is
   dated "MDXX. xvii. Kal. Julii." According to the Roman mode of
   reckoning backwards, counting the day of departure, and adding two to
   the number of days of the preceding month, the Kalendae Julii fall on
   June 15. Ranke probably overlooked the fact that June had only
   twenty-nine days in the Julian Calendar. Janssen refers to an essay of
   Druffel on the date of the bull in the "Sitzungsberichte der Bayer
   Academie." 1880, p. 572; but he does not give the result.

   [251] Pallavicini and Muratori censure Leo for commissioning Eck.
   Janssen says (II. 109):"Es war ein trauriger Missgriff, dass mit der
   Verkündigung und Vollstreckung der Bulle in mehreren deutschen
   Dioecesen Luther's Gegner Johann Eck beauftragt wurde." The same view
   was previously expressed by Kampschulte (Die Universität Erfurt in
   ihrem Verh. zu dem Humanismus und der Reformation, Trier, 1858-60, Th.
   II., p. 36), although he fully justified the papal bull as a necessity
   for the Roman Church, and characterized its tone as comparatively mild
   in view of Luther's radicale Umsturzgedanken and his violence of
   language. Audin and Archbishop Spalding defend the Pope.

   [252] Letter of Miltitz to Fabian von Feilitzsch, Oct. 2, 1520. In
   Walch, XV. 1872. Luther wrote to Spalatin, Oct. 3, 1520 (De Wette, I.
   492), that he had just heard of the bad reception and danger of Eck at
   Leipzig, and hoped that he might escape with his life, but that his
   devices might come to naught.

   [253] "Bulla est, in aqua natet." So Luther reports in a letter to
   Greffendorf, Oct. 20 (De Wette, I. 520), and in a letter to Spalatin,
   Nov. 4 (I. 522 sq.). Kampschulte (l.c. II. 37 sqq.) gives a full
   account of Eck's troubles at Erfurt, from a rare printed
   placard,Intimatio Erphurdiana pro Martino Luthero (preserved by
   Riederer, and quoted also by Gieseler, III. I. 81, Germ. ed., or IV.
   53, Anglo-Am. ed.), to the effect that the whole theological faculty
   stirred up all the students, calling upon them to resist "with hand and
   foot" the furious Pharisees and slanderers of Luther, who wished to
   cast him out of the Church and into hell. Luther makes no mention of
   such a strange action of the faculty, which is scarcely credible as it
   included strict Catholics.

   [254] "Lutherus peccavit in duobus, nempe quod tetigit coronam
   Pontificis et ventres monachorum." Spalatin, Annal. 28 sq.

   [255] "Bullae saevitia probos omnes offendit, ut indigna mitissimo
   Christi vicario." Erasmus soon afterwards called back his Axiomata pro
   causa Lutheri, which he had sent to Spalatin. They were, however,
   published (Erl. ed. of Luther's Op. Lat., vol. V. 238-242). About the
   same time he advised the Emperor to submit the case of Luther to
   impartial judges of different nations, or to a general council. See
   Gieseler, IV. 53 sq., Am. ed.

   [256] The heading is omitted by Raynaldus.

   [257] Raynaldus: superinducentes.

   [258] Cocquelines omits suae.

   [259] Raynaldus omits denique

   [260] Raynaldus omits praefatis.

   [261] Omitted by Raynaldus.

   [262] Omitted by Raynaldus.

   [263] Raynaldus: propugnatores.

   [264] Coequelines readscollationem, contrary to the original which
   plainly reads collectionem.

   [265] Cocquelines: et absolutum vere esse.Raynaldus is right here,
   according to the original.

   [266] ·Cocquelines: sed.

   [267] Raynaldus omits ad.

   [268] Rayn. omits concilio.

   [269] · Rayn. omits specie.

   [270] This is an indirect approval of the burning of heretics. Rome
   never has disowned this theory.

   [271] Cocquelines reads nec --nec for aut. Raynaldus is right here.

   [272] Raynaldus: medicitatis (a typographical error).

   [273] Raynaldus (fol. 305) omits all the specifications of punishments
   from here down to the next section beginning Insuper.

   [274] The original reads quorumcnq. (an o for an a).

   [275] The remainder of the bull is briefly summarized by Raynaldus.

   [276] Coequelines: Imperatori. Then there should be a comma after
   Imperatori. The seven Electors of the Emperor are meant.

   [277] Cocquelines omits debere.

   [278] Cocquelines: clausulas. A plausible correction.

   [279] Subscriptions are omitted by Cocquelines and Raynaldus.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 48. Luther burns the Pope's bull, and forever breaks with Rome. Dec.
   10, 1520.

   Literature in § 47.

   Luther was prepared for the bull of excommunication. He could see in it
   nothing but blasphemous presumption and pious hypocrisy. At first he
   pretended to treat it as a forgery of Eck. [280] Then he wrote a Latin
   and German tract, "Against the bull of Antichrist," [281] called it a
   "cursed, impudent, devilish bull," took up the several charges of
   heresy, and turned the tables against the Pope, who was the heretic
   according to the standard of the sacred Scriptures. Hutten ridiculed
   the bull from the literary and patriotic standpoint with sarcastic
   notes and queries. Luther attacked its contents with red-hot anger and
   indignation bordering on frenzy. He thought the last day, the day of
   Antichrist, had come. He went so far as to say that nobody could be
   saved who adhered to the bull. [282]

   In deference to his friends, he renewed the useless appeal from the
   Pope to a free general council (Nov. 17, 1520), which he had made two
   years before (Nov. 28, 1518); and in his appeal he denounced the Pope
   as a hardened heretic, an antichristian suppresser of the Scriptures, a
   blasphemer and despiser of the holy Church and of a rightful council.
   [283]

   At the same time he resolved upon a symbolic act which cut off the
   possibility of a retreat. The Pope had ordered his books, good and bad,
   without any distinction, to be burned; and they were actually burned in
   several places, at Cologne even in the presence of the Emperor. They
   were to be burned also at Leipzig. Luther wanted to show that he too
   could burn books, which was an old custom (Acts 19:19) and easy
   business. He returned fire for fire, curse for curse. He made no
   distinction between truth and error in the papal books, since the Pope
   had ordered his innocent books to be destroyed as well. He gave public
   notice of his intention.

   On the tenth day of December, 1520, at nine o'clock in the morning, in
   the presence of a large number of professors and students, he solemnly
   committed the bull of excommunication, together with the papal
   decretals, the Canon law, and several writings of Eck and Emser, to the
   flames, with these words (borrowed from Joshua's judgment of Achan the
   thief, Josh. 7:25): "As thou [the Pope] hast vexed the Holy One of the
   Lord, may the eternal fire vex thee!" [284]

   The spot where this happened is still shown outside the Elster Gate at
   Wittenberg, under a sturdy oak surrounded by an iron railing. [285]

   Several hundred students tarried at the fire, which had been kindled by
   a master of the university, some chanting the Te Deum, others singing
   funeral dirges on the papal laws; then they made a mock procession
   through the town, collected piles of scholastic and Romish books, and
   returning to the place of execution, threw them into the flames.

   Luther, with Melanchthon, Carlstadt, and the other doctors and masters,
   returned home immediately after the act. He at first had trembled at
   the step, and prayed for light; but after the deed was done, he felt
   more cheerful than ever. He regarded his excommunication as an
   emancipation from all restraints of popery and monasticism. On the same
   day he calmly informed Spalatin of the event as a piece of news. [286]
   On the next day he warned the students in the lecture-room against the
   Romish Antichrist, and told them that it was high time to burn the
   papal chair with all its teachers and abominations. [287] He publicly
   announced his act in a Latin and German treatise, "Why the Books of the
   Pope and his Disciples were burned by Dr. Martin Luther." He justified
   it by his duties as a baptized Christian, as a sworn doctor of
   divinity, as a daily preacher, to root out all unchristian doctrines.
   He cites from the papal law-books thirty articles and errors in
   glorification of the papacy, which deserve to be burned; and calls the
   whole Canon-law "the abomination of desolation" (Matt. 24:15) and
   antichristian (2 Thess. 2:4), since the sum of its teaching was, that
   "the Pope is God on earth, above all things, heavenly and earthly,
   spiritual and temporal; all things belong to the Pope, and no one dare
   ask, What doest thou?" Simultaneously with this tract, he published an
   exhaustive defense of all his own articles which had been condemned by
   the Pope, and planted himself upon the rock of God's revelation in the
   Scriptures.

   Leo X., after the expiration of the one hundred and twenty days of
   grace allowed to Luther by the terms of the bull, proceeded to the last
   step, and on the third day of January, 1521, pronounced the ban against
   the Reformer, and his followers, and an interdict on the places where
   they should be harbored. But Luther had deprived the new bull of its
   effect.

   The burning of the Pope's bull was the boldest and most eventful act of
   Luther. Viewed in itself, it might indeed have been only an act of
   fanaticism and folly, and proved a brutum fulmen. But it was preceded
   and followed by heroic acts of faith in pulling down an old church, and
   building up a new one. It defied the greatest power on earth, before
   which emperors, kings, and princes, and all the nations of Europe bowed
   in reverence and awe. It was the fiery signal of absolute and final
   separation from Rome, and destroyed the effect of future papal bulls
   upon one-half of Western Christendom. It emancipated Luther and the
   entire Protestant world from that authority, which, from a wholesome
   school of discipline for young nations, had become a fearful and
   intolerable tyranny over the intellect and conscience of men.

   Luther developed his theology before the eyes of the public; while
   Calvin, at a later period, appeared fully matured, like Minerva from
   the head of Jupiter. "I am one of those," he says, "among whom St.
   Augustin classed himself, who have gradually advanced by writing and
   teaching; not of those who at a single bound spring to perfection out
   of nothing.

   He called the Pope the most holy and the most hellish father of
   Christendom. He began in 1517 as a devout papist and monk, with full
   faith in the Roman Church and its divinely appointed head, protesting
   merely against certain abuses; in 1519, at the Leipzig disputation, he
   denied the divine right, and shortly afterwards also the human right,
   of the papacy; a year later he became fully convinced that the papacy
   was that antichristian power predicted in the Scriptures, and must be
   renounced at the risk of a man's salvation.

   There is no doubt that in all these stages he was equally sincere,
   earnest, and conscientious.

   Luther adhered to the position taken in the act of Dec. 10, 1520, with
   unchanging firmness. He never regretted it for a moment. He had burned
   the ship behind him; he could not, and he would not, return. To the end
   of his life he regarded and treated the Pope of Rome in his official
   capacity as the very Antichrist, and expected that he soon would be
   destroyed by spiritual force at the second coming of Christ. At
   Schmalkalden in 1537 he prayed that God might fill all Protestants with
   hatred of the Pope. One of his last and most violent books is directed
   "Against the Papacy at Rome, founded by the Devil." Wittenberg, 1545.
   [288] He calls Paul III. the "Most hellish Father," and addresses him
   as "Your Hellishness." instead of "Your Holiness." He promises at the
   close to do still better in another book, and prays that in case of his
   death, God may raise another one "a thousandfold more severe; for the
   devilish papacy is the last evil on earth, and the worst which all the
   devils with all their power could contrive. God help us. Amen." Thus he
   wrote, not under the inspiration of liquor or madness, as Roman
   historians have suggested, but in sober earnest. His dying words, as
   reported by Ratzeburger, his physician, were a prediction of the
   approaching death of the papacy: --


   "Pestis eram vivus, moriens tua mors ero Papa."

   From the standpoint of his age, Luther regarded the Pope and the Turk
   as "the two arch-enemies of Christ and his Church," and embodied this
   view in a hymn which begins, --


   "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort

   Und steur' des Papst's und Türken Mord." [289]

   This line, like the famous eightieth question of the Heidelberg
   Catechism which denounces the popish mass as an "accursed idolatry,"
   gave much trouble in mixed communities, and in some it was forbidden by
   Roman-Catholic magistrates. Modern German hymn-books wisely substitute
   "all enemies," or "enemies of Christ," for the Pope and the Turk.

   In order to form a just estimate of Luther's views on the papacy, it
   must not be forgotten that they were uttered in the furnace-heat of
   controversy, and with all the violence of his violent temper. They have
   no more weight than his equally sweeping condemnation of Aristotle and
   Thomas Aquinas.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [280] "Ich höre auch sagen, Dr. Eck habe eine Bulle mit sich von Rom
   wider mich gebracht, die ihm so ähnlich sei, dass sie wohl möchte auch
   Dr. Eck heissen, so voll Lügen und Irrthum sie sein soll; und er gebe
   vor, den Leuten das Maul zu schmieren, sie sollen glauben, es sei des
   Papsts Werk, so es sein Lügenspiel ist. Ich lasse es geschehen, muss
   des Spiels in Gottes Namen warten; wer weiss, was göttlicher Rath
   beschlossen hat." Von den neuen Eckischen Bullen und Lügen.

   [281] Widder die Bullen des Endchrists, Weimar ed. vol. VI. 613-629.

   [282] He wrote to Spalatin, Nov. 4 (in De Wette, I. 522): "Impossibile
   est salvos fieri, qui huic Bullae aut faverunt, aut non repugnaverunt."
   He told his students, Dec. 11: "Nisi toto corde dissentistis a regno
   papali, non potestis assequi vestrarum animarum salutem."

   [283] Walch, XV. 1909 sqq. Erl. ed., XXIV. 28-35; and Op. Lat., V.
   119-131. The appeal was published in Latin and German.

   [284] The "Holy One" refers to Christ, as in Mark 1:24; Acts 2:27; not
   to Luther, as ignorance and malignity have misinterpreted the word.
   Luther spoke in Latin: "Quia tu conturbasti Sanctum Domini, ideoque te
   conturbet ignis aeternus." The Vulgate translates Josh. 7:25: "Quia
   turbasti nos, exturbet te Dominus in die hac." In the Revised E. V.,
   the whole passage reads: "Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall
   trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burnt
   them [in Hebrew vt'] with fire after they had stoned them with stones."

   [285] A tablet contains the inscription: "Dr. Martin Luther verbrannte
   an dieser Stätte am 10 Dec. 1520 the päpstliche Bannbulle."

   [286] "Anno MDXX, decima Decembris, hora nona, exusti sunt Wittembergae
   ad orientalem portam, juxta S. Crucem, omnes libri Papae: Decretum,
   Decretales, Sext. Clement. Extravagant., et Bulla novissima Leonis X.:
   item summa Angelica [a work on casuistry by Angelus Carletus de
   Clavasio, or Chiavasso, d. 1495], Chrysoprasus [De praedestinatione
   centuriae sex, 1514] Eccii, et alia ijusdem autoris, Emseri, et quaedam
   alia, quo adjecta per alios sunt: ut videant incendiarii Papistae, non
   esse magnarum virium libros exurere, quos confutare non possunt. Haec
   erunt nova." De Wette, I. 532. Further details about the burning and
   the conduct of the students we learn from the report of an unnamed
   pupil of Luther: Excustionis antichristianarum decretalium Acta, In the
   Erl. ed. of Op. Lat., V. 250-256.

   [287] Ranke, i. 307; Köstlin, i. 407; Kolde, i. 290.

   [288] Wider das Papstthum zu Rom, tom Teufel gestiftet (in the Erl.
   ed., XXVI. 108-228). A rude wood-cut on the title-page represents the
   Pope with long donkey-ears going into the jaws of hell, while demons
   are punching and jeering at him. Luther calls the Pope (p. 228)
   "Papstesel mit langen Eselsohren und verdammtem Lügenmaul." The book
   was provoked by two most presumptuous letters of Pope Paul III. to the
   Emperor Charles V., rebuking him for giving rest to the Protestants at
   the Diet of Speier, 1544, till the meeting of a general council, and
   reminding him of the terrible end of those who dare to violate the
   priestly prerogatives. King Ferdinand, the Emperor's brother, read the
   book through, and remarked, "Wenn die bösen Worte heraus wären, so
   hätte der Luther nicht übel geschrieben." But not a few sincere friends
   of Luther thought at the time that he did more harm than good to his
   own cause by this book.

   [289] It appeared in Klug's Gesangbuch, Wittenberg, 1543, under the
   title: "Ein Kinderlied zu singen, wider die zween Ertzfeinde Christi
   und seiner heiligen Kirchen, den Papst und Türken."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 49. The Reformation and the Papacy.

   Here is the place to interrupt the progress of events, and to reflect
   on the right or wrong of the attitude of Luther and the Reformation to
   the papacy.

   The Reformers held the opinion that the papacy was an antichristian
   institution, and some of the Protestant confessions of faith have given
   symbolical sanction to this theory. They did not mean, of course, that
   every individual Pope was an Antichrist (Luther spoke respectfully of
   Leo X.), nor that the papacy as such was antichristian: Melanchthon, at
   least, conceived of the possibility of a Christian papacy, or a general
   superintendence of the Church for the preservation of order and unity.
   [290]

   They had in view simply the institution as it was at their time, when
   it stood in open and deadly opposition to what they regarded as the
   truth of the gospel of Christ, and the free preaching of the same.
   Their theory does not necessarily exclude a liberal and just
   appreciation of the papacy before and after the Reformation.

   And in this respect a great change has taken place among Protestant
   scholars, with the progress of exegesis and the knowledge of church
   history.

   1. The prophetic Scripture texts to which the Reformers and early
   Protestant divines used to appeal for their theory of the papacy, must
   be understood in accordance with the surroundings and conditions of the
   writers and their readers who were to be benefited. This does not
   exclude, of course, an application to events and tendencies of the
   distant future, since history is a growing and expanding fulfillment of
   prophecy; but the application must be germane to the original design
   and natural meaning of the text. Few commentators would now find the
   Pope of Rome in "the little horn" of Daniel (7:8, 20, 21), who had in
   view rather Antiochus Epiphanes; or in the Apocalyptic beast from the
   abyss (Rev. 13:1), and "the mother of harlots" (17:5), which evidently
   apply to the persecuting heathen Rome of Nero and his successors.

   St. John is the only biblical writer who uses the term Antichrist;"
   [291] but he means by it, in the first instance, the Gnostic heresy of
   his own day, which denied the incarnation; for he represents this
   denial as the characteristic sign of Antichrist, and represents him as
   being already in the world; yea, he speaks of "many" antichrists who
   had gone out of the Christian churches in Asia Minor. The Pope has
   never denied the incarnation, and can never do it without ceasing to be
   Pope.

   It is quite legitimate to use the terms "antichrist" and antichristian"
   in a wider sense, of all such men and tendencies as are opposed to
   Christ and his teaching; but we have no right to confine them to the
   Pope and the Roman Church., , Many shall come in my name, saying, I am
   Christ, and shall deceive many" (Matt. 24:4, 11, 23, 24).

   St. Paul's prediction of the great apostasy, and the "man of sin, the
   son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against all that is
   called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits in the temple of God,
   setting himself forth as God." [292] sounds much more than any other
   passage like a description of the papacy with its amazing claim to
   universal and infallible authority over the Church of God. But the
   application becomes more than doubtful when we remember that the
   apostle characterizes this antichristian apostasy as "the mystery of
   lawlessness," already at work in his day, though restrained from open
   manifestation by some conservative power. [293] The papacy did not yet
   exist at the time; and its besetting sin is not lawless freedom, but
   the very opposite.

   If we would seek for Scripture authority against the sins and errors of
   popery, we must take our stand on our Lord's opposition to the
   traditions of the elders, which virtually set aside the word of God; on
   Paul's Epistles to the Galatians and Romans, where he defends Christian
   freedom against legalistic bondage, and teaches the great doctrines of
   sin and grace, forgotten by Rome, and revived by the Reformation; and
   on St. Peter's protest against hierarchical presumption and pride.

   There was in the early Church a general expectation that an Antichrist
   in the emphatic sense, an incarnation of the antichristian principle, a
   pseudo-Christ of hell, a "world-deceiver" (as he is called in the newly
   discovered "Teaching of the Apostles" [294] ), should appear, and lead
   astray many Christians immediately before the second coming of Christ.
   The Reformers saw this Antichrist in the Pope, and looked for his
   speedy destruction; but an experience of more than three hundred and
   fifty years proves that in this expectation they were mistaken, and
   that the final Antichrist is still in the future.

   2. As regards church history, it was as yet an unexplored field at the
   time of the Reformation; but the Reformation itself roused the spirit
   of inquiry and independent, impartial research. The documentary sources
   of the middle ages have only recently been made accessible on a large
   scale by such collections as the Monumenta Germania. "The keys of
   Peter," says Dr. Pertz, the Protestant editor of the Monumenta, "are
   still the keys of the middle ages." The greatest Protestant historians,
   ecclesiastical and secular,--I need only mention Neander and
   Ranke,--agree in a more liberal view of the papacy. [295]

   After the downfall of the old Roman Empire, the papacy was, with all
   its abuses and vices, a necessary and wholesome training-school of the
   barbarian nations of Western and Northern Europe, and educated them
   from a state of savage heathenism to that degree of Christian
   civilization which they reached at the time of the Reformation. It was
   a check upon the despotism of rude force; it maintained the outward
   unity of the Church; it brought the nations into communication; it
   protected the sanctity of marriage against the lust of princes; it
   moderated slavery; it softened the manners; it inspired great
   enterprises; it promoted the extension of Christianity; it encouraged
   the cause of learning and the cultivation of the arts of peace.

   And even now the mission of the papacy is not yet finished. It seems to
   be as needful for certain nations, and a lower stage of civilization,
   as ever. It still stands, not a forsaken ruin, but an imposing pyramid
   completed to the very top. The Roman Church rose like a wounded giant
   from the struggle with the Reformation, abolished in the Council of
   Trent some of the worst abuses, reconquered a considerable portion of
   her lost territory in Europe, added to her dominion one-half of the
   American Continent, and completed her doctrinal and governmental system
   in the decrees of the Vatican Council. The Pope has lost his temporal
   power by the momentous events of 1870; but he seems to be all the
   stronger in spiritual influence since 1878, when Leo XIII. was called
   to occupy the chair of Leo X. An aged Italian priest shut up in the
   Vatican controls the consciences of two hundred millions of human
   beings,--that is, nearly one-half of nominal Christendom,--and rules
   them with the claim of infallibility in all matters of faith and duty.
   It is a significant fact, that the greatest statesman of the nineteenth
   century, and founder of a Protestant empire, who at the beginning of
   the Kulturkampf declared that he would never go to Canossa (1872),
   found it expedient, after a conflict of ten years, to yield to an
   essential modification of the anti-papal May-laws of 1873, without,
   however, changing his religious conviction, or sacrificing the
   sovereignty of the State; he even conferred an extraordinary
   distinction upon the Pope by selecting him as arbiter in an
   international dispute between Germany and Spain (1885). [296] But it is
   perhaps still more remarkable, that Leo XIII. in return sent to Prince
   Bismarck, the political Luther of Germany, the Christ Order, which was
   never given to a Protestant before, and that he supported him in the
   political campaign of 1887.

   3. How can we justify the Reformation, in view of the past history and
   present vitality of the Papacy?

   Here the history of the Jewish Church, which is a type of the
   Christian, furnishes us with a most instructive illustration and
   conclusive answer. The Levitical hierarchy, which culminated in the
   high priest, was of divine appointment, and a necessary institution for
   the preservation of the theocracy. And yet what God intended to be a
   blessing became a curse by the guilt of man: Caiaphas, the lineal
   descendant of Aaron, condemned the Messiah as a false prophet and
   blasphemer, and the synagogue cast out His apostles with curses.

   What happened in the old dispensation was repeated on a larger scale in
   the history of Christianity. An antichristian element accompanied the
   papacy from the very beginning, and culminated in the corruptions at
   the time of the Reformation. The greater its assumed and conceded
   power, the greater were the danger and temptation of abuse. One of the
   best of Popes, Gregory the Great, protested against the title of,
   "universal bishop," as an antichristian presumption. The Greek Church,
   long before the Reformation, charged the Bishop of Rome with
   antichristian usurpation; and she adheres to her protest to this day.
   Not a few Popes, such as Sergius III., John XII., Benedict IX., John
   XXIII., and Alexander VI., were guilty of the darkest crimes of
   depraved human nature; and yet they called themselves successors of
   Peter, and vicars of Christ. Who will defend the papal crusades against
   the Albigenses and Waldenses, the horrors of the Inquisition, the papal
   jubilee over the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and all those bloody
   persecutions of innocent people for no other crime but that of opposing
   the tyranny of Rome, and dissenting from her traditions? Liberal and
   humane Catholics would revolt at an attempt to revive the dungeon and
   the fagot against heresy and schism; but the Church of Rome in her
   official capacity has never repudiated the principle of persecution by
   which its practice was justified: on the contrary, Pope Gregory XVI.
   declared liberty of conscience and worship an insanity (deliramentum),
   and Pius IX. in his "Syllabus" of 1864 denounced it among the
   pernicious and pestilential errors of modern times. And what shall we
   say of the papal schism in the fifteenth century, when two or three
   rival Popes laid all Christendom under the curse of excommunication?
   What of the utter secularization of the papacy just before the
   Reformation, its absorption in political intrigues and wars and schemes
   of aggrandizement, its avarice, its shameless traffic in indulgences,
   and all those abuses of power which called forth the one hundred and
   one gravamina of the German -nation? Who will stand up for the bull of
   excommunication against Luther, with its threats of burning him and his
   books, and refusing the consolations of religion to every house or
   community which should dare to harbor him or any of his followers? If
   that bull be Christian, then we must close our eyes against the plain
   teaching of Christ in the Gospels.

   Even if the Bishop of Rome should be the legitimate successor of Peter,
   as he claims, it would not shield him against the verdict of history.
   For the carnal Simon revived and reasserted himself from time to time
   in the spiritual Peter. The same disciple whom Christ honored as the
   "Rock," on whose confession he promised to build his Church, was soon
   afterwards called "Satan" when he presumed to divert his Master from
   the path of suffering; the same Peter was rebuked when he drew the
   sword against Malchus; the same Peter, notwithstanding his boast of
   fidelity, denied his Lord and Saviour; and the same Peter incurred the
   severe remonstrance of Paul at Antioch when he practically denied the
   rights of the Gentile converts, and virtually excluded them from the
   Church. According to the Roman legend, the prince of the apostles
   relapsed into his consistent inconsistency, even a day before his
   martyrdom, by bribing the jailer, and fleeing for his life till the
   Lord appeared to him with the cross at the spot of the memorial chapel
   Domine quo vadis. Will the Pope ever imitate Peter in his bitter
   repentance for denying Christ?

   If the Apostolic Church typically foreshadows the whole history of
   Christianity, we may well see in the temporary collision between Peter
   and Paul the type of the antagonism between Romanism and Protestantism.
   The Reformation was a revolt against legal bondage, and an assertion of
   evangelical freedom. It renewed the protest of Paul against Peter, and
   it succeeded. It secured freedom in religion, and as a legitimate
   consequence, also intellectual, political, and civil freedom. It made
   the Word of God with its instruction and comfort accessible to all.
   This is its triumphant vindication. Compare for proof Protestant
   Germany under William I., with Roman-Catholic Germany under Maximilian
   I.; England under Queen Victoria, with England under Henry VII.;
   Calvinistic Scotland and Lutheran Scandinavia in the nineteenth
   century, with Roman Scotland and Scandinavia in the fifteenth. Look at
   the origin and growth of free Holland and free North America. Contrast
   England with Spain of the present day; Prussia with Austria; Holland
   with Portugal; the United States and Canada with the older Mexico and
   Peru or Brazil. Consider the teeming Protestant literature in every
   department of learning, science and art; and the countless Protestant
   churches, schools, colleges, universities, charitable institutions and
   missionary stations scattered all over the globe. Surely, the
   Reformation can stand the test: "By their fruits ye shall know them."

   NOTES.

   Opinions of representative Protestant historians who cannot be charged
   with partisan bias or Romanizing tendency: --

   "Whatever judgment," says Leopold von Ranke, who was a good Lutheran
   (Die römischen Päpste, I. 29), "we may form of the Popes of former
   times, they had always great interests in view: the care of an
   oppressed religion, the conflict with heathenism, the propagation of
   Christianity among the Northern nations, the founding of an independent
   hierarchical power. It belongs to the dignity of human existence to
   will and to execute something great. These tendencies the Popes kept in
   higher motion."

   In the last volume of his great work, published after his death
   (Weltgeschichte, Siebenter Theil, Leipzig, 1886, pp. 311-313), Ranke
   gives his estimate of the typical Pope Gregory VII., of which this is a
   condensed translation: --

   "The hierarchical system of Gregory rests on the attempt to make the
   clerical power the basis of the entire human existence. This explains
   the two principles which characterize the system,--the command of
   (clerical] celibacy, and the prohibition of investiture by the hands of
   a layman. By the first, the lower clergy were to be made a corporation
   free from all personal relations to human society; by the second, the
   higher clergy were to be secured against all influence of the secular
   power. The great hierarch had well considered his standpoint: he
   thereby met a want of the times, which regarded the clergy, so to say,
   as higher beings. All his words had dignity, consistency and power. He
   had a native talent for worldly affairs. Peter Damiani probably had
   this in view when he called him, once, the holy Satan .... Gregory's
   deliverances contain no profound doctrines; nearly all were known
   before. But they are summed up by him in a system, the sincerity of
   which no one could call in question. His dying words: 'I die in exile,
   because I loved justice,' express his inmost conviction. But we must
   not forget that it was only the hierarchical justice which he defended
   to his last breath."--In the thirteenth chapter, entitled "Canossa,"
   Ranke presents his views on the conflict between Gregory VII. and Henry
   IV., or between the hierarchical and the secular power.

   Adolf Harnack, a prominent historian of the present generation, in his
   commemorative address on Martin Luther (Giessen, 1883, p. 7), calls
   "the idea of the papacy the greatest and most humane idea (die grösste
   und humanste Idee) which the middle age produced."

   It was In a review of Ranke's History of the Popes, that Lord Macaulay,
   a Protestant of Scotch ancestry, penned his brilliant eulogy on the
   Roman Church as the oldest and most venerable power in Christendom,
   which is likely to outlast all other governments and churches. "She was
   great and respected," he concludes, "before the Saxon set his foot on
   Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence
   still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshiped in the
   Temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor, when
   some traveler from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude,
   take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of
   St. Paul's." [297]

   But we must not overlook a later testimony, in which the eloquent
   historian supplemented and qualified this eulogy: --

   "From the time," says Macaulay in the first chapter of his History of
   England, "when the barbarians overran the Western Empire, to the time
   of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Rome had been
   generally favorable to science, to civilization, and to good
   government. But, during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth
   of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom,
   whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and
   in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has everywhere
   been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile
   provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in
   political servitude, and in intellectual torpor; while Protestant
   countries once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been
   turned, by skill and industry, into gardens, and can boast of a long
   list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever, knowing
   what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred years
   ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome with
   the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment as to
   the tendency of papal domination. The descent of Spain, once the first
   among monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation; the elevation of
   Holland, in spite of many natural disadvantages, to a position such as
   no commonwealth so small has ever reached,--teach the same lesson.
   Whoever passes, in Germany, from a Roman-Catholic to a Protestant
   principality, in Switzerland from a Roman-Catholic to a Protestant
   canton, in Ireland from a Roman-Catholic to a Protestant county, finds
   that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilization. On
   the other side of the Atlantic, the same law prevails. The Protestants
   of the United States have left far behind them the Roman Catholics of
   Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of Lower Canada remain
   inert, while the whole continent round them is in a ferment with
   Protestant activity and enterprise. The French have doubtless shown an
   energy and an intelligence which, even when misdirected, have justly
   entitled them to be called a great people. But this apparent exception,
   when examined, will be found to confirm the rule; for in no country
   that is called Roman-Catholic has the Roman-Catholic Church, during
   several generations, possessed so little authority as in France.

   "It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman-Catholic
   religion or to the Reformation. For the amalgamation of races and for
   the abolition of villenage, she is chiefly indebted to the influence
   which the priesthood in the middle ages exercised over the laity. For
   political and intellectual freedom, and for all the blessings which
   political and intellectual freedom have brought in their train, she is
   chiefly indebted to the great rebellion of the laity against the
   priesthood."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [290] See his appendix to the Smalcald Articles, 1537: De autoritate et
   primatu Papae.

   [291] 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7.

   [292] 2 Thess. 2:3-7. This is the passage quoted by the Westminster
   Confession against the Pope, chap. xxv. 6.

   [293] to gar musterion ede energeitai tes anomias ; monon ho katechon
   arti heos ek mesou genetai. The Roman government was at first (before
   the Neronian persecution of 64) a protector of Christianity, and more
   particularly of Paul, who could effectually appeal to his Roman
   citizenship at Philippi, before the centurion at Jerusalem, and before
   Festus at Caesarea.

   [294] Ch. 16:4; kosmoplanos, a very significant term, which unites the
   several marks of the Antichrist of John (2 John 7: ho planos kai
   antichristos)of the Apocalypse (12:9: ho planon ten oikoumenen), and of
   Paul, since the Didaché connects the appearance of the world-deceiver
   with the increase of lawlessness (anomia, as in 2 Thess. 2:7). Comp. my
   monograph on the Didaché, pp. 77 and 214 sq.

   [295] Comp. especially Ranke's classical work, Die römischen Päpste in
   den letzten vier Jahrhunderten, 8th edition, Leipzig, 1885, 3 vols. The
   first edition appeared 1834-36. Ranke has found a worthy successor in
   an English scholar, Dr. M. Creighton (professor of Church history in
   Cambridge), the author of an equally impartial History of the Papacy
   during the Period of the Reformation, beginning with the Great Schism,
   1378. London and Boston, 1882 sqq. (so far 4 vols.). But the same
   period of the papacy is now being written with ample learning and
   ability from the modem Roman point of view, by Dr. Ludwig Pastor
   (professor of Church history at Innsbruck) in his Geschichte der Päpste
   seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, of which the first volume appeared
   at Freiburg-i.-B. 1886, and extends from 1305 to the election of Pius
   II. The author promises six volumes. He had the advantage of using the
   papal archives by the effectual favor of Pope Leo XIII.

   [296] Alexander VI., by a stroke of his pen, divided America between
   Spain and Portugal: Leo XIII., in 1886, gave the insignificant Caroline
   Islands in the Pacific to Spain, but the free commerce to Germany.

   [297] First published In the Edinburgh Review, October, 1840. The
   passage is often quoted by Roman Catholics, e.g., by Archbishop
   Spalding, in his History of the Prot. Ref., p. 217 sqq.; but they find
   it convenient to ignore the other passage from his History of England.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 50. Charles V.

   Literature.

   Most of the works on Charles V. are histories of his times, in which he
   forms the central figure. Much new material has been brought to light
   from the archives of Brussels and Simancas. He is extravagantly lauded
   by Spanish, and indiscriminately censured by French historians. The
   Scotch Robertson, the American Prescott, and the German Ranke are
   impartial.

   I. Joh. Sleidan (d. 1556): De Statu Religionis et Reipublicae Carlo V.
   Caesare Commentarii, Argentor. 1555 fol. (best ed. by Am Ende,
   Frf.-a.-M., 1785). Ludw. v. Seckendorf: Com. Hist. et Apol. de
   Lutheranism sive de Reformatione Religionis, Leipzig, 1694. Goes to the
   year 1546.--The English Calendars of State-Papers,--Spanish, published
   by the Master of the Rolls.--De Thou: Historia sui Temporis (from the
   death of Francis I.).--The Histories of Spain by Mariana (Madrid,
   1817-22, 20 vols. 8vo); Zurita (Çaragoça, 1669-1710, 6 vols. fol.);
   Ferreras (French trans., Amsterdam, 1751, 10 vols. 4to); Salazar de
   Mendoza (Madrid, 1770-71, 3 vols. fol.); Modesto Lafuente (Vols. XI.
   and XII., 1853), etc.

   II. Biographies. Charles dictated to his secretary, William Van Male,
   while leisurely sailing on the Rhine, from Cologne to Mayence, in June,
   1550, and afterwards at Augsburg, under the refreshing shade of the
   Fugger gardens, a fragmentary autobiography, in spanish or French,
   which was known to exist, but disappeared, until Baron Kervyn de
   Lettenhove, member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, discovered in the
   National Library at Paris, in 1861, a Portuguese translation of it, and
   published a French translation from the same, with an introduction,
   under the title: Commentaires de Charles-Quint, Brussels, 1862. An
   English translation by Leonard Francis Simpson: The Autobiography of
   the Emperor Charles V., London, 1862 (161 and xlviii. pp.]. It is a
   summary of the Emperor's journeys and expeditions ("Summario das Viages
   e Jornadas"), from 1516 to 1548. It dwells upon the secular events; but
   incidentally reveals, also, his feelings against the Protestants, whom
   he charges with heresy, obstinacy, and insolence, and against Pope Paul
   III., whom he hated for his arrogance, dissimulation, and breach of
   promise. Comp. on this work, the introduction of Lettenhove (translated
   by Simpson), and the acute criticism of Ranke, vol. vi. 75 sqq.

   Alfonso Ulloa: Vita di Carlo V., Venet., 1560. Sandoval: Histoiria de
   la Vida y Hechos del Emperadòr Carlos Quinto, Valladolid, 1606
   (Pampelona, 1618; Antwerp, 1681, 2 vols.). Sepulveda (Whom the Emperor
   selected as his biographer): De Rebus Gestis Caroli V. lmperatoris,
   Madrid, 1780 (and older editions). G. Leti: Vita del Imperatore Carlo
   V., 1700, 4vols. A. de Musica (in Menckenius, Scriptores Rerum
   Germanicarum, vol. I., Leipzig, 1728). William Robertson (d. 1793): The
   History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V., London, 1769, 3 vols.;
   6th ed., 1787, 4 vols.; new ed. of his Works, London, 1840, 8 vols.
   (vols. III., IV., V.); best ed., Phila. (Lippincott) 1857, 3 vols.,
   with a valuable supplement by W. H. Prescott on the Emperor's life
   after his abdication, from the archives of Simancas (III., 327-510).
   Hermann Baumgarten: Geschichte Karls V., Stuttgart, 1885 sqq. (to
   embrace 4 vols.; chiefly based on the English Calendars and the
   manuscript diaries of the Venetian historian Marino Sanuto).

   III. Documents and Treatises on special parts of his history. G.
   Camposi: Carlo V. in Modena (in Archivio Storico Italiano, Florence,
   1842-53, 25 vols., App.). D. G. van Male: Lettres sur la vie intérieure
   de l'Empéreur Charles-Quint, Brussels, 1843. K. Lanz: Correspondenz des
   Kaisers Karl V. aus dem kaiserlichen Archiv und der Bibliothèque de
   Burgogne in Brussel, Leipzig, 1844-46, 3 vols.; Staatspapiere zur
   Geschichte des Kaisers Karl V., Stuttgart, 1845; and Actenstücke und
   Briefe zur Geschichte Karls V., Wien, 1853-57. G. Heine: Briefe an
   Kaiser Karl V., geschrieben von seinem Beichtvater (Garcia de Loaysa)
   in den Jahren 1530-32, Berlin, 1848 (from the Simancas archives). Sir
   W. Maxwell Stirling: The Cloister-Life of Charles V., London, 1852. F.
   A. A. Mignet: Charles-Quint; son abdication, son séjour et sa mort au
   monastère de Yuste, Paris, 1854; and Rivalité de François I. et de
   Charles-Quint, 1875, 2 vols. Amédée Pichot: Charles-Quint, Chronique de
   sa vie intérieure et de sa vie politique, de son abdication et de sa
   retraite dans le cloître de Yuste, Paris, 1854. Gachart (keeper of the
   Belgic archives): Retraite et mort de Charles-Quint au monastère de
   Yuste (the original documents of Simancas), Brussels. 1854-55, 2 vols.;
   Correspondance de Charles-Quint et de Adrien VI., Brussels, 1859.
   Henne: Histoire du règne de Charles V. en Belgique, Brussels, 1858
   sqq., 10 vols. Th. Juste: Les Pays-bas sous Charles V., 1861. Giuseppe
   de Leva: Storia documentata di Carlo V. in correlazione all' Italia,
   Venice, 1863. Rösler: Die Kaiserwahl Karls V., Wien, 1868. W.
   Maurenbrecher: Karl V. und die deutschen Protestanten, 1545-1555,
   Düsseldorf, 1865; Studien und Skizzen zur Geschichte der
   Reformationszeit, Leipzig, 1874, pp. 99-133. A. v. Druffel: Kaiser Karl
   V. und die röm. Curie 1544-1546. 3 Abth. München, 1877 sqq.

   IV. Comp. also Ranke: Deutsche Geschichte, I. 240 sqq., 311 sqq.; and
   on Charles's later history in vols. II., III., IV., V., VI. Janssen:
   Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, II. 131 sqq., and vol. III. Weber:
   Allgemeine Weltgeschichte, vol. X. (1880), 1 sqq. Prescott's Philip
   II., bk. I, chaps. 1 and 9 (vol. I. 1-26; 296-359). Motley's Rise of
   the Dutch Republic, vol. I., Introduction.

   Before passing to the Diet of Worms, we must make the acquaintance of
   Charles V. He is, next to Martin Luther, the most conspicuous and
   powerful personality of his age. The history of his reign is the
   history of Europe for more than a third of a century (from 1520-1556).

   In the midst of the early conflicts of the Reformation, the Emperor
   Maximilian I. died at Wels, Jan. 12, 1519. He had worn the German crown
   twenty-six years, and is called "the last Knight." With him the middle
   ages were buried, and the modern era dawned on Europe.

   It was a critical period for the Empire: the religion of Mohammed
   threatened Christianity, Protestantism endangered Catholicism. From the
   East the Turks pushed their conquests to the walls of Vienna, as seven
   hundred years before, the Arabs, crossing the Pyrenees, had assailed
   Christian Europe from the West; in the interior the Reformation spread
   with irresistible force, and shook the foundations of the Roman Church.
   Where was the genius who could save both Christianity and the
   Reformation, the unity of the Empire and the unity of the Church? A
   most difficult, yea, an impossible task.

   The imperial crown descended naturally on Maximilian's grandson, the
   young king of Spain, who became the most powerful monarch since the
   days of Charles the Great. He was the heir of four royal lines which
   had become united by a series of matrimonial alliances.

   Never was a prince born to a richer inheritance, or entered upon public
   life with graver responsibilities, than Charles V. Spanish, Burgundian,
   and German blood mingled in his veins, and the good and bad qualities
   of his ramified ancestry entered into his constitution. He was born
   with his eventful century (Feb. 24, 1500), at Ghent in Flanders, and
   educated under the tuition of the Lord of Chièvres, and Hadrian of
   Utrecht, a theological professor of strict Dominican orthodoxy and
   severe piety, who by his influence became the successor of Leo X. in
   the papal chair. His father, Philip I., was the only son of Maximilian
   and Mary of Burgundy (daughter of Charles the Bold), and cuts a small
   figure among the sovereigns of Spain as "Philip the Handsome" (Filipe
   el Hermoso),--a frivolous, indolent, and useless prince. His mother was
   Joanna, called, "Crazy Jane" (Juana la Loca), second daughter of
   Ferdinand and Isabella, and famous for her tragic fate, her insanity,
   long imprisonment, and morbid devotion to the corpse of her faithless
   husband, for whom, during his life, she had alternately shown
   passionate love and furious jealousy. She became, after the death of
   her mother (Nov. 26, 1504), the nominal queen of Spain, and dragged out
   a dreary existence of seventy-six years (she died April 11, 1555).
   [298]

   Charles inherited the shrewdness of Ferdinand, the piety of Isabella,
   and the melancholy temper of his mother which plunged her into
   insanity, and induced him to exchange the imperial throne for a
   monastic cell. The same temper reappeared in the gloomy bigotry of his
   son Philip II., who lived the life of a despot and a monk in his
   cloister-palace of the Escorial. The persecuting Queen Mary of England,
   a granddaughter of Isabella, and wife of Philip of Spain, had likewise
   a melancholy and desponding disposition.

   From his ancestry Charles fell heir to an empire within whose
   boundaries the sun never set. At the death of his father (Sept. 25,
   1506), he became, by right of succession, the sovereign of Burgundy and
   the Netherlands; at the death of Ferdinand (Jan. 23, 1516), he
   inherited the crown of Spain with her Italian dependencies (Naples,
   Sicily, Sardinia), and her newly acquired American possessions (to
   which were afterwards added the conquests of Mexico and Peru); at the
   death of Maximilian, he succeeded to the hereditary provinces of the
   house of Habsburg, and soon afterwards to the empire of Germany. In
   1530 he was also crowned king of Lombardy, and emperor of the Romans,
   by the Pope.

   The imperial crown of Germany was hotly contested between him and
   Francis I. All the arts of diplomacy and enormous sums of money were
   spent on electioneering by both parties. The details reveal a rotten
   state of the political morals of the times. Pope Leo at first favored
   the claims of King Francis, who was the natural rival of the Austrian
   and Burgundian power, but a stranger to the language and manners of
   Germany. The seven electors assembled at Frankfurt offered the dignity
   to the wisest of their number, Frederick of Saxony; but he modestly and
   wisely declined the golden burden lined with thorns. He would have
   protected the cause of the Reformation, but was too weak and too old
   for the government of an empire threatened by danger from without and
   within. [299] He nominated Charles; and this self-denying act of a
   Protestant prince decided the election, June 28, 1520. When the
   ambassadors of Spain offered him a large reward for his generosity, he
   promptly refused for himself, and declared that he would dismiss any of
   his servants for taking a bribe.

   Charles was crowned with unusual splendor, Oct. 23, at Aachen
   (Aix-la-Chapelle), where the founder of the German Empire lies buried.
   In his oath he pledged himself to protect the Catholic faith, the Roman
   Church, and its head the Pope.

   The new emperor was then only twenty years of age, and showed no signs
   of greatness. "Nondum" ("Not yet") was the motto which he had adopted
   for his maiden shield in a tournament at Valladolid two years before.
   He afterwards exchanged it for "Plus Ultra." He was a good rider, and
   skilled in military exercises; he could break a lance with any Knight,
   and vanquish a bull in the ring, like an expert espada; but he was in
   feeble health, with a pale, beardless, and melancholy face, and without
   interest in public affairs. He had no sympathy with the German nation,
   and was ignorant of their language. But as soon as he took the reins of
   power into his own hands, he began to develop a rare genius for
   political and military government. His beard grew, and he acquired some
   knowledge of most of the dialects of his subjects. He usually spoke and
   wrote French and Spanish.

   Charles V. as Emperor.

   Without being truly great, he was an extraordinary man, and ranks,
   perhaps, next to Charlemagne and Otho I. among the German emperors.

   He combined the selfish conservatism of the house of Habsburg, the
   religious ardor of the Spaniard, and the warlike spirit of the Dukes of
   Burgundy. He was the shrewdest prince in Europe, and an indefatigable
   worker. He usually slept only four hours a day. He was slow in forming
   his resolutions, but inflexible in carrying them into practice, and
   unscrupulous in choosing the means. He thought much, and spoke little;
   he listened to advice, and followed his own judgment. He had the
   sagacity to select and to keep the ablest men for his cabinet, the army
   and navy, and the diplomatic service. He was a good soldier, and could
   endure every hardship and privation except fasting. He was the first of
   the three great captains of his age, the Duke of Alva being the second,
   and Constable Montmorency the third.

   His insatiable ambition involved him in several wars with France, in
   which he was generally successful against his bold but less prudent
   rival, Francis I. It was a struggle for supremacy in Italy, and in the
   Councils of Europe. He twice marched upon Paris. [300]

   He engaged in about forty expeditions, by land and sea, in times when
   there were neither railroads nor steamboats. He seemed to be ubiquitous
   in his vast dominions. His greatest service to Christendom was his
   defeat of the army of Solyman the Magnificent, whom he forced to
   retreat to Constantinople (1532), and his rescue of twenty thousand
   Christian slaves and prisoners from the grasp of the African corsairs
   (1535), who, under the lead of the renowned Barbarossa, spread terror
   on the shores of the Mediterranean. These deeds raised him to the
   height of power in Europe.

   But he neglected the internal affairs of Germany, and left them mostly
   to his brother Ferdinand. He characterized the Germans as "dreamy,
   drunken, and incapable of intrigue." He felt more at home in the rich
   Netherlands, which furnished him the greatest part of his revenues. But
   Spain was the base of his monarchy, and the chief object of his care.
   Under his reign, America began to play a part in the history of Europe
   as a mine of gold and silver.

   He aimed at an absolute monarchy, with a uniformity in religion, but
   that was an impossibility; France checked his political, Germany his
   ecclesiastical ambition.

   His Personal Character.

   In his private character he was superior to Francis I., Henry VIII.,
   and most contemporary princes, but by no means free from vice. He was
   lacking in those personal attractions which endear a sovereign to his
   subjects. [301] Under a cold and phlegmatic exterior he harbored fiery
   passions. He was calculating, revengeful, implacable, and never forgave
   an injury. He treated Francis I., and the German Protestant princes in
   the Schmalkaldian war, with heartless severity. He was avaricious,
   parsimonious, and gluttonous. He indulged in all sorts of indigestible
   delicacies,--anchovies, frogs' legs, eel-pasties,--and drank large
   quantities of iced beer and Rhine wine; he would not listen to the
   frequent remonstrances of his physicians and confessors, and would
   rather endure the discomforts of dyspepsia and gout than restrain his
   appetite, which feasted on twenty dishes at a single meal. In his
   autobiography he speaks of a fourteenth attack of gout, which "lasted
   till the spring of 1548." [302]

   He had taste for music and painting. He had also some literary talent,
   and wrote or dictated an autobiography in the simple, objective style
   of Caesar, ending with the defeat of the Protestant league (1548); but
   it is dry and cold, destitute of great ideas and noble sentiments.

   He married his cousin, Donna Isabella of Portugal, at Seville, 1526,
   and lived in happy union with her till her sudden death in 1539; but
   during his frequent absences from Spain, where she always remained, as
   well as before his marriage, and after her death, he indulged in
   ephemeral unlawful attachments. [303] He had at least two illegitimate
   children, the famous Margaret, Duchess of Parma, and Don Juan of
   Austria, the hero of Lepanto (1547-1578), who lies buried by his side
   in the Escorial.

   Charles has often been painted by the master hand of Titian, whom he
   greatly admired. He was of middle size, broad-shouldered, deep-chested,
   with a commanding forehead, an aquiline nose, a pale, grave, and
   melancholy countenance. His blue and piercing eye, his blonde, almost
   reddish hair, and fair skin, betokened his German origin, and his
   projecting lower jaw, with its thick, heavy lip, was characteristic of
   the princes of Habsburg; but otherwise he looked like a Spaniard, as he
   was at heart.

   Incessant labors and cares, gluttony, and consequent gout, undermined
   his constitution, and at the age of fifty he was prematurely old, and
   had to be carried on a litter like a helpless cripple. Notwithstanding
   his many victories and successes, he was in his later years an unhappy
   and disappointed man, but sought and found his last comfort in the
   religion of his fathers.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [298] Her sad story is told by the contemporary historians Gomez, Peter
   Martyr, Zurita, and Sandoval (from whom the scattered account of
   Prescott is derived in his Ferdinand and Isabella, III. 94, 170 sqq.,
   212 sqq., 260 sqq.), and more fully revealed in the Simancas and
   Brussels documents. It has been ably discussed by several modem writers
   with reference to the unproved hypothesis of Bergenroth that she was
   never insane, but suspected and tortured (?) for heresy, and cruelly
   treated by Charles. But her troubles began long before the Reformation,
   and her melancholy disposition was derived from her grandmother. She
   received the extreme unction from priestly hands, and her last word
   was: "Jesus, thou Crucified One, deliver me." See Gustav Bergenroth (a
   German scholar then residing in London), Letters, Despatches, and State
   Papers relating to the negotiations between England and Spain preserved
   in the archives of Simancas and elsewhere. Suppl. to vol. I. and II.,
   London, 1868; Gachard, Jeanne la Folle, Bruxelles, 1869; and Jeanne la
   Folle et Charles V., in the Bulletin of the Brussels Academy, 1870 and
   1872; Rösler, Johanna die Wahnsinnige, Königin von Castilien, Wien,
   1870, Maurenbrecher, Johanna die Wahnsinnige, in his "Studien und
   Skizzen zur Gesch. der Reformationszeit." Leipzig, 1874, pp. 75-98.

   [299] Martin (Histoire de France, VII. 496) says: "L'électeur Frédéric
   n'a vait ni la hardiesse ni le génie d'un tel rôle."

   [300] Martin, from his French standpoint, calls the controversy between
   Francis I. and Charles V. "la lutte de la nationalité française contre
   la monstrueuse puissance, issue des combinaisons artificielles de
   l'hérédité féodale, qui tend à l'asservissement des nationalités
   européennes." (Hist. de France, VIII., 2.)

   [301] Motley (I. 118) calls him "a man without a sentiment and without
   a tear." But he did shed tears at the death of his favorite sister
   Eleanore (Prescott, I. 324).

   [302] English translation, p. 157.

   [303] Motley (I. 123) says, on the authority of the Venetian
   ambassador, Badovaro: "He was addicted to vulgar and miscellaneous
   incontinence." On the same authority he reports of Philip II.: "He was
   grossly licentious. It was his chief amusement to issue forth at night,
   disguised, that he might indulge in vulgar and miscellaneous
   incontinence in the common haunts of vice." (I. 145.)
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 51. The Ecclesiastical Policy of Charles V.

   The ecclesiastical policy of Charles was Roman Catholic without being
   ultramontane. He kept his coronation oath. All his antecedents were in
   favor of the traditional faith. He was surrounded by ecclesiastics and
   monks. He was thoroughly imbued with the Spanish type of piety, of
   which his grandmother is the noblest and purest representative.
   Isabella the Catholic, the greatest of Spanish sovereigns, "the queen
   of earthly queens." [304] conquered the Moors, patronized the
   discoverer of America, expelled the Jews, and established the
   Inquisition,--all for the glory of the Virgin Mary and the Catholic
   religion. [305] A genuine Spaniard believes, with Gonzalo of Oviedo,
   that "powder against the infidels is incense to the Lord." With him, as
   with his Moorish antipode, the measure of conviction is the measure of
   intolerance, and persecution the evidence of zeal. The burning of
   heretics became in the land of the Inquisition a sacred festival, an
   "act of faith;" [306] and such horrid spectacles were in the reign of
   Philip II. as popular as the bull-fights which still flourish in Spain,
   and administer to the savage taste for blood.

   Charles heard the mass daily, listened to a sermon on Sunday and holy
   days, confessed and communed four times a year, and was sometimes seen
   in his tent at midnight on his knees before the crucifix. He never had
   any other conception of Christianity than the Roman-Catholic, and took
   no time to investigate theological questions.

   He fully approved of the Pope's bull against Luther, and ordered it to
   be executed in the Netherlands. In his retreat at Yuste, he expressed
   regret that he had kept his promise of safe-conduct; in other words,
   that he had not burned the heretic at Worms, as Sigismund had burned
   Hus at Constance. He never showed the least sympathy with the liberal
   tendencies of the age, and regarded Protestantism as a rebellion
   against Church and State. He would have crushed it out if he had had
   the power; but it was too strong for him, and he needed the Protestant
   support for his wars against France, and against the Turks. He began in
   the Netherlands that fearful persecution which was carried on by his
   more bigoted son, Philip II., but it provoked the uprising of the
   people, and ended in the establishment of the Dutch Republic. [307] He
   subdued the Lutheran league in the Schmalkaldian war; pale as death,
   but trusting in God, he rushed into the hottest of the fight at
   Mühlberg, and greeted the decisive victory of 1547 with the words: "I
   came, I saw, and God conquered." [308] But the height of his power was
   the beginning of his decline. The same Saxon Elector, Moritz, who had
   aided him against the Protestant princes, turned against him in 1552,
   and secured in the treaty of Passau, for the first time, some degree of
   legal toleration to the Lutherans in Germany.

   But while Charles was a strict Roman Catholic from the beginning to the
   end of his life, he was, nevertheless, by no means a blind and slavish
   papist. Like his predecessors on the German throne, be maintained the
   dignity and the sovereignty of the state against the claims of
   hierarchical supremacy. He hated the French, or neutral, politics of
   the papal court. His troops even captured Rome, and imprisoned Clement
   VII., who had formed a league with Francis I. against him (1527). He
   quarreled with Pope Paul III., who in turn severely protested against
   his tolerant or hesitating policy towards the Protestants in Germany.
   He says, in his Autobiography, [309] that "the Pope's emissaries, and
   some ecclesiastics, were incessantly endeavoring to induce him to take
   up arms against the Protestants (tomar as armas contra os
   protestantes)," but that he "hesitated on account of the greatness and
   difficulty of such an enterprise."

   Moreover, Charles had a certain zeal for a limited reformation of
   church discipline on the basis of the Catholic doctrine and the papal
   hierarchy. He repeatedly urged a general council, against the dilatory
   policy of the Popes, and exhorted Protestants and Catholics alike to
   submit to its decisions as final. Speaking of the Diet of Augsburg,
   held in 1530, he says that he, asked his Holiness to convoke and
   assemble a general council, as most important and necessary to remedy
   what was taking place in Germany, and the errors which were being
   propagated throughout Christendom." [310] This was likewise consistent
   with Spanish tradition. Isabella the Catholic, and Cardinal Ximenes,
   had endeavored to reform the clergy and monks in Spain. [311]

   This Roman-Catholic reformation was effected by the Council of Trent,
   but turned out to be a papal counter-reformation, and a weapon against
   Protestantism in the hands of the Spanish order of the Jesuits.

   The Emperor and the Reformer.

   Charles and Luther saw each other once, and only once, at the Diet of
   Worms. The Emperor was disgusted with the monk who dared to set his
   private judgment and conscience against the time-honored creed of
   Christendom, and declared that he would never make him a heretic. But
   Luther wrote him a respectful letter of thanks for his safe-conduct.
   [312]

   Twenty years later, after his victory over John Frederick of Saxony at
   Mühlberg on the Elbe (April 24, 1547), Charles stood on the grave of
   Luther in the castle church of Wittenberg, and was advised by the
   bloodthirsty Duke of Alva to dig up and burn the bones of the
   arch-heretic, and to scatter the ashes to the winds of heaven; but he
   declined with the noble words:, I make war on the living, not on the
   dead." This was his nearest approach to religious toleration. But the
   interesting incident is not sufficiently authenticated. [313]

   For twenty-six years the Emperor and the Reformer stood at the head of
   Germany, the one as a political, the other as a religious, leader;
   working in opposite directions,--the one for the preservation of the
   old, the other for the creation of the new, order of things. The one
   had the army and treasure of a vast empire at his command; the other
   had nothing but his faith and pen, and yet made a far deeper and more
   lasting impression on his and on future ages. Luther died peacefully in
   his birthplace, trusting in the merits of Christ, and commending his
   soul to the God who redeemed him. Ten years later Charles ended his
   life as a monk in Spain, holding a burning candle in the right hand,
   and pressing with the left the crucifix to his lips, while the
   Archbishop of Toledo intoned the Psalm De Profundis. The last word of
   the dying Emperor was "Jesus."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [304] So Shakespeare calls her, and praises her "sweet gentleness,"
   "saintlike meekness,""wife-like government, obeying in commanding."

   [305] The inscription on the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella in the
   Capilla Real of the cathedral at Granada is characteristic: "Mahometice
   secte prostratores et heretice pervicacie extinctores Ferdinandus
   Aragonum et Helisabetha Castelle vir et uxor unanimes Catholici
   appellati Marmores clauduntur hoc tumulo." The sepulcher is wrought in
   delicate alabaster; on it are extended the life-size marble figures of
   the Catholic sovereigns; their faces are portraits; Ferdinand wears the
   garter, Isabella the cross of Santiago; the four doctors of the Church
   ornament the corners, the twelve apostles the sides. Under the same
   monument rest the ashes of their unfortunate daughter Joanna and her
   worthless husband. I have seen no monument which surpasses this in
   chaste and noble simplicity (unless it be that of King Frederick
   William III. and Queen Louisa at Charlottenburg), and none which is
   more suggestive of historical meditation and reflection.

   [306] Actus fidei; auto-de-fé in Spanish; auto-da-fé

   [307] Motley (Dutch Republic, I. 80) says: "Thousands and tens of
   thousands of virtuous, well-disposed men and women, who had as little
   sympathy with anabaptistical as with Roman depravity, were butchered in
   cold blood, under the sanguinary rule of Charles, in the Netherlands.
   In 1533, Queen Dowager Mary of Hungary, sister of the Emperor, Regent
   of the provinces, the 'Christian widow' admired by Erasmus, wrote to
   her brother, that 'in her opinion, all heretics, whether repentant or
   not, should be prosecuted with such severity as that error might be at
   once extinguished, care being only taken that the provinces were not
   entirely depopulated.' With this humane limitation, the 'Christian
   widow' cheerfully set herself to superintend as foul and wholesale a
   system of murder as was ever organized. In 1535, an imperial edict was
   issued at Brussels, condemning all heretics to death; repentant males
   to be executed with the sword, repentant females to be buried alive,
   the obstinate, of both sexes, to be burned. This and similar edicts
   were the law of the land for twenty years, and rigidly enforced."

   [308] "Vine, y vi, y Dios vencio." But it was hardly a battle. Ranke
   (vol. IV. 377): "Es war keine Schlacht, sondern ein Ansprengen auf der
   einen, ein Auseinanderstieben auf der anderen Seite; in einem
   Augenblicke war alles vollendet." He says of the Emperor (p. 376): "Wie
   ein einbalsamirter Leichnam, wie ein Gespenst rückte er gegen sie [die
   Protestanten) an."

   [309] Ch. VI., in Simpson's translation, p. 91 sq.

   [310] Autobiography, p. 19. On p. 73 sqq. he complains of Clement VII.
   and Paul III., on account of their violation of promise to convoke such
   a council. He does not conceal his hatred of Paul III.

   [311] Comp. Maurenbrecher, Die Kirchenreformation in Spanien, in his
   "Studien und Skizzen." pp. 1-40, and his Geschichte der katholischen
   Reformation (Nördlingen, 1880), vol. I., pp. 37-55. Maurenbrecher shows
   that there were two reformation-currents in the sixteenth century, one
   proceeding from Spain, and led by Charles V., which aimed at a
   restoration of the mediaeval Church in its purity and glory; the other
   proceeding from Germany, and embodied in Luther, which aimed at an
   emancipation of the human mind from the authority of Rome, and at a
   reconstruction of the Church on the inner religiosity of the
   individual.

   [312] April 28, 1521; in De Wette, I. 589-594.

   [313] In his Autobiography (ch. X., 151 sqq.) Charles speaks of the
   siege and capitulation of Wittenberg, but says nothing of a visit to
   Luther's grave, nor does he even mention his name. I looked in vain for
   an allusion to the fact in Sleidan, and Lindner (in his extensive
   Appendix to Seckendorf, from 1546 to 1555). Ranke ignores it, though he
   is very full on this chapter in Charles's history (vol. IV. 378 sqq.).
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 52. The Abdication of Charles, and his Cloister Life.

   The abdication of Charles, and his subsequent cloister life, have a
   considerable interest for ecclesiastical as well as general history,
   and may by anticipation be briefly noted in this place.

   In the year 305, the last of the imperial persecutors of Christianity,
   who was born a slave and reached his power by military achievements,
   voluntarily resigned the throne of the Caesars, and retired for the
   remaining eight years of his life to his native Salona in Dalmatia to
   raise cabbages. In the year 1555 (Oct. 25), Charles V., who was born an
   heir of three kingdoms, wearied of the race of politics, diplomacy, and
   war, defeated by the treason of Moritz, and tormented by gout,
   abdicated his crown to live and die like an humble monk.

   The abdication of Charles took place in the royal palace at Brussels,
   in the same hall in which, forty years before, he had been declared of
   age, and had assumed the reign of Brabant. He was dressed in mourning
   for his unfortunate mother, and wore only one ornament,--the superb
   collar of the Golden Fleece. He looked grave, solemn, pale, broken: he
   entered leaning on a staff with one hand, and on the arm of William of
   Orange with the other; behind him came Philip II., his son and heir,
   small, meager, timid, but magnificently dressed,--a momentous
   association with the two youthful princes who were to be afterwards
   arrayed in deadly conflict for the emancipation of the Netherlands from
   the yoke of Spanish tyranny and bigotry. [314]

   The Emperor rose from the throne, and with his right hand resting on
   the shoulder of the Prince of Orange,--who was one day to become the
   most formidable enemy of his house,--and holding a paper in the other
   hand, he addressed his farewell in French before the members of the
   royal family, the nobility of the Netherlands, the Knights of the
   Golden Fleece, the royal counselors, and the great officers of the
   household. He assured them that he had done his duty to the best of his
   ability, mindful of his dear native land, and especially of the
   interests of Christianity against infidels and heretics. He had shrunk
   from no toil; but a cruel malady now deprived him of strength to endure
   the cares of government, and this was his only motive for carrying out
   a long-cherished wish of resigning the scepter. He exhorted them above
   all things to maintain the purity of the faith. He had committed many
   errors, but only from ignorance, and begged pardon if he had wronged
   any one.

   He then resigned the crown of the Netherlands to his son Philip with
   the exhortation, "Fear God: live justly; respect the laws; above all,
   cherish the interests of religion."

   Exhausted, and pale as a corpse, he fell back upon his seat amid the
   tears and sobs of the assembly. [315]

   On the 16th of January, 1556, he executed the deeds by which he ceded
   the sovereignty of Castile and Aragon, with their dependencies, to
   Philip. His last act was to resign the crown of Germany into the hands
   of his brother Ferdinand; but, as affairs move slowly in that country,
   the resignation was not finally acted on till Feb. 28, 1558, at the
   Diet at Frankfurt. [316]

   His Retirement to Yuste.

   On the 17th of September Charles sailed from the harbor of Flushing for
   Spain with a fleet of fifty-six sails, his two sisters (Mary, formerly
   queen of Hungary, and regent of the Low Countries, and Eleanor, the
   widow of King Francis of France), and a hundred and fifty select
   persons of the imperial household.

   After a boisterous voyage, and a tedious land-journey, he arrived, Feb.
   3, 1557, at the Convent of St. Gerome in Yuste, which he had previously
   selected for his retreat.

   The resolution to exchange the splendors of the world for monastic
   seclusion was not uncommon among the rulers and nobles of Spain; and
   the rich convents of Montserrat and Poblet (now in ruins) had special
   accommodations for royal and princely guests. Charles had formed it
   during the lifetime of the Empress Isabella, and agreed with her that
   they would spend the rest of their days in neighboring convents, and be
   buried under the same altar. In 1542 he announced his intention to
   Francisco de Borgia; but the current of events involved him in a new
   and vain attempt to restore once more the Holy Roman Empire in the
   fullness of its power. Now his work was done, and he longed for rest.
   His resolution was strengthened by the desire to atone for sins of
   unchastity committed after the death of his wife. [317]

   Yuste is situated in the mountainous province of Estremadura, about
   eight leagues from Plasencia and fifty leagues from Valladolid (then
   the capital of Spain), in a well-watered valley and a salubrious
   climate, and was in every way well fitted for the wishes of the
   Emperor. [318]

   Here he spent about eighteen months till his death,--a remarkable
   instance of the old adage, Sie transit gloria mundi.

   His Cloister Life.

   There is something grand and romantic, as well as sad and solemn, in
   the voluntary retirement of a monarch who had swayed a scepter of
   unlimited power over two hemispheres, and taken a leading part in the
   greatest events of an eventful century. There is also an idyllic charm
   in the combination of the innocent amusements of country life with the
   exercises of piety.

   The cloister life of Charles even more than his public life reveals his
   personal and religious character. It was represented by former
   historians as the life of a devout and philosophic recluse, dead to the
   world and absorbed in preparation for the awful day of judgment; [319]
   but the authentic documents of Simancas, made known since 1844, correct
   and supplement this view.

   He lived not in the convent with the monks, but in a special house with
   eight rooms built for him three years before. It opened into gardens
   alive with aromatic plants, flowers, orange, citron, and fig trees, and
   protected by high walls against intruders. From the window of his
   bedroom he could look into the chapel, and listen to the music and
   prayers of the friars, when unable to attend. He retained over fifty
   servants, mostly Flemings, including a major-domo (who was a Spaniard),
   an almoner, a keeper of the wardrobe, a keeper of the jewels,
   chamberlains, secretaries, physician, confessor, two watchmakers,
   besides cooks, confectioners, bakers, brewers, game-keepers, and
   numerous valets. [320] Some of them lived in a neighboring village, and
   would have preferred the gay society of Brussels to the dull monotony
   of solitude. He was provided with canopies, Turkish carpets,
   velvet-lined arm-chairs, six cushions and a footstool for his gouty
   limbs, twenty-five suits of tapestry, sixteen robes of silk and velvet
   lined with ermine or eider-down, twelve hangings of the finest black
   cloth, four large clocks of elaborate workmanship, and a number of
   pocket-watches. The silver furniture for his table and kitchen amounted
   to fourteen thousand ounces in weight. The walls of his room were
   adorned with choice pictures, nine from the pencil of Titian (including
   four portraits of himself and one of the Empress). He had also a small
   library, mostly of devotional books. [321]

   He took exercise in his gardens, carried on a litter. He constructed,
   with the aid of a skilled artisan, a little handmill for grinding
   wheat, puppet soldiers, clocks and watches, and endeavored in vain to
   make an two of them run exactly alike. The fresh mountain air and
   exercise invigorated his health, and he never felt better than in 1557.

   He continued to take a lively interest in public affairs, and the
   events of the times. He greeted with joy the victory of St. Quentin;
   with partial dissatisfaction, the conclusion of peace with the Pope
   (whom he would have treated more severely); with regret, the loss of
   Calais; with alarm, the advance of the Turkish fleet to Spain, and the
   progress of the Lutheran heresy. He received regular dispatches and
   messengers, was constantly consulted by his son, and freely gave advice
   in the new complications with France, and especially also in financial
   matters. He received visits from his two sisters,--the dowager queens
   of Hungary and France, who had accompanied him to Spain,--and from the
   nobles of the surrounding country; he kept up a constant correspondence
   with his daughter Joanna, regent of Castile, and with his sister, the
   regent of Portugal.

   He maintained the stately Castilian etiquette of dining alone, though
   usually in the presence of his physician, secretary, and confessor, who
   entertained him on natural history or other topics of interest. Only
   once he condescended to partake of a scanty meal with the friars. He
   could not control, even in these last years, his appetite for spiced
   capons, pickled sausages, and eel-pies, although his stomach refused to
   do duty, and caused him much suffering.

   But he tried to atone for this besetting sin by self-flagellation,
   which he applied to his body so severely during Lent that the scourge
   was found stained with his blood. Philip cherished this precious
   memorial of his father's piety, and bequeathed it as an heirloom to his
   son. [322]

   From the beginning of his retreat, and especially in the second year,
   Charles fulfilled his religious duties with scrupulous
   conscientiousness, as far as his health would permit. He attended mass
   in the chapel, said his prayers, and listened to sermons and the
   reading of selections from the Fathers (Jerome, Augustin, Bernard), the
   Psalms, and the Epistles of Paul. He favored strict discipline among
   the friars, and gave orders that any woman who dared to approach within
   two bow-shots of the gate should receive a hundred stripes. He enjoyed
   the visits of Francisco Borgia, Duke of Gandia, who had exchanged a
   brilliant position for membership in the Society of the Jesuits, and
   confirmed him in his conviction that he had acted wisely in
   relinquishing the world. He wished to be prayed for only by his
   baptismal name, being no longer emperor or king. Every Thursday was for
   him a feast of Corpus Christi.

   He repeatedly celebrated the exequies of his parents, his wife, and a
   departed sister.

   Yea, according to credible contemporary testimony, he celebrated, in
   the presentiment of approaching death, his own funeral, around a huge
   catafalque erected in the dark chapel. Bearing a lighted taper, he
   mingled with his household and the monks in chanting the prayers for
   the departed, on the lonely passage to the invisible world, and
   concluded the doleful ceremony by handing the taper to the priest, in
   token of surrendering his spirit to Him who gave it. According to later
   accounts, the Emperor was laid alive in his coffin, and carried in
   solemn procession to the altar. [323]

   This relish for funeral celebrations reveals a morbid trait in his
   piety. It reminds one of the insane devotion of his mother to the dead
   body of her husband, which she carried with her wherever she went.

   His Intolerance.

   We need not wonder that his bigotry increased toward the end of life.
   He was not philosopher enough to learn a lesson of toleration (as Dr.
   Robertson imagines) from his inability to harmonize two timepieces. On
   the contrary, he regretted his limited forbearance towards Luther and
   the German Protestants, who had defeated his plans five years before.
   They were now more hateful to him than ever.

   To his amazement, the same heretical opinions broke out in Valladolid
   and Sevilla, at the very court and around the throne of Spain. Augustin
   Cazalla, [324] who had accompanied him as chaplain in the Smalkaldian
   war, and had preached before him at Yuste, professed Lutheran
   sentiments. Charles felt that Spain was in danger, and repeatedly urged
   the most vigorous measures for the extermination of heresy with fire
   and sword. "Tell the Grand Inquisitor, from me," he wrote to his
   daughter Joanna, the regent, on the 3d of May, 1558, "to be at his
   post, and to lay the ax at the root of the evil before it spreads
   farther. I rely on your zeal for bringing the guilty to punishment with
   all the severity which their crimes demand." In the last codicil to his
   will, he conjures his son Philip to cherish the Holy Inquisition as the
   best instrument for the suppression of heresy in his dominions. "So,"
   he concludes, "shall you have my blessing, and the Lord shall prosper
   all your undertakings." [325]

   Philip II., who inherited the vices but none of the virtues of his
   father, faithfully carried out this dying request, and by a terrible
   system of persecution crushed out every trace of evangelical
   Protestantism in Spain, and turned that beautiful country into a
   graveyard adorned by somber cathedrals, and disfigured by bull-rings.

   His Death.

   The Emperor's health failed rapidly in consequence of a new attack of
   gout, and the excessive heat of the summer, which cost the life of
   several of his Flemish companions. He died Sept. 21, 1558, a consistent
   Catholic as be had lived. A few of his spiritual and secular friends
   surrounded his death-bed. He confessed with deep contrition his sins;
   prayed repeatedly for the unity of the Church; received, kneeling in
   his bed, the holy communion and the extreme unction; and placed his
   hope on the crucified Redeemer. The Archbishop of Toledo, Bartolomé de
   Carranza, read the one hundred and thirtieth Psalm, and, holding up a
   crucifix, said: "Behold Him who answers for all. There is no more sin;
   all is forgiven;" while another of his preachers commended him to the
   intercession of saints, namely, St. Matthew, on whose day he was born,
   and St. Matthias, on whose day he was in a few moments to leave this
   world.

   "Thus," says Mignet, "the two doctrines which divided the world in the
   age of Charles V. were once more brought before him on the bed of
   death."

   It is an interesting fact, that the same archbishop who had taken a
   prominent part in the persecution of English Protestants under Queen
   Mary, and who administered the last and truly evangelical comfort to
   the dying Emperor, became a victim of persecution, and that those very
   words of comfort were used by the Emperor's confessor as one of the
   grounds of the charge of heresy before the tribunal of the Spanish
   Inquisition. Bartolomé de Carranza was seven years imprisoned in Spain,
   then sent to Rome, lodged in the Castle of St. Angelo, after long delay
   found guilty of sixteen Lutheranizing propositions in his writings,
   suspended from the exercise of his episcopal functions, and sentenced
   to be shut up for five years in a convent of his order. He died sixteen
   days after the judgment, in the Convent Sopra Minerva, May 2, 1576,
   "declaring his innocence with tears in his eyes, and yet with strange
   inconsistency admitting the justice of his sentence." [326]

   In less than two months after the decease of the Emperor, Queen Mary,
   his cousin, and wife of his son, died, Nov. 17, 1558, and was borne to
   her rest in Westminster Abbey. With her the Roman hierarchy collapsed,
   and the reformed religion, after five years of bloody persecution, was
   permanently restored on the throne and in the Church of England. In
   view of this coincidence, we may well exclaim with Ranke, "How far do
   the thoughts of Divine Providence exceed the thoughts and purposes of
   men!" [327]

   His Tomb.

   From Yuste the remains of the once mighty Emperor were removed in 1574
   to their last resting-place under the altar of the cathedral of the
   Escorial. That gloomy structure, in a dreary mountain region some
   thirty miles north of Madrid, was built by his order as a royal
   burial-place (between 1563 and 1584), and combines a palace, a
   monastery, a cathedral, and a tomb (called Pantheon). Philip II., "el
   Escorialense," spent there fourteen years, half king, half monk,
   boasting that he ruled the Old and New World from the foot of a
   mountain with two inches of paper. He died, after long and intense
   suffering, Sept. 13, 1598, in a dark little room facing the altar of
   the church.

   Father and son are represented in gilt-bronze statues, opposite each
   other, in kneeling posture, looking to the high altar; Charles V., with
   his wife Isabella, his daughter Maria, and his sisters Eleonora and
   Maria; Philip II., with three of his wives, and his weak-minded and
   unfortunate son, Don Carlos.

   The Escorial, like Spain itself, is only a shadow of the past,
   inhabited by the ghost of its founder, who entombed in it his own
   gloomy character. [328]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [314] "Ein Moment volt Schicksal und Zukunft!" says Ranke (V. 295)."Da
   war der mächtige Kaiser, der bisher die grossen Angelegenheiten der
   Welt verwaltet hatte; von denen, die ihm zunächst standen, beinahe der
   Generation, die ihn umgab, nahm er Abschied. Neben ihm erschienen die
   Männer, denen die Zukunft gehörte, Philipp II. und der Prinz von
   Oranien, in denen sich die beiden entgegengesetzten Directionen
   repräsentirten, die fortan um Weltherrschaft kämpfen sollten."

   [315] Sandoval, II. 597 sqq.; Gachart, Analectes belgiques, 87;
   Prescott, Philip the Second, I. 10 sqq.; Ranke, V. 293 sqq. Prescott
   calls this abdication one of the most remarkable scenes in history.

   [316] The negotiations with Ferdinand and the German Diet are detailed
   by Ranke, V. 297 sqq.

   [317] He regretted that, from regard to his son, he had not married
   again. Ranke, V. 297.

   [318] It is often miscalled Saint Yuste, or St. Justus, even by
   Robertson in Book XII., Eng. ed. III. 294; Amer. ed. III. 226, etc.;
   and more recently by Dr. Stoughton, Spanish Reformers, Lond., 1883, p.
   168. Yuste is not named after a saint, but after a little stream. The
   convent was founded in 1404, and its proper name is El monasterio de
   San Geronimo de Yuste. It lies on the route from Madrid to Lisbon, but
   is somewhat difficult of access. It was sacked and almost destroyed by
   the French soldiers under Soult, 1809. The bedroom of Charles, and an
   overgrown walnut-tree under whose shade he used to sit and muse, are
   still shown. Yuste is now in possession of the Duke of Montpensier. See
   descriptions in the works of Stirling, Mignet, and Prescott, above
   quoted, and by Ford in Murray's Handbook of Spain, I. 294 (sixth
   edition).

   [319] By Sandoval, Strada, and by his most elaborate historian, Dr.
   Robertson, who says: "There he buried, in solitude and silence, his
   grandeur, his ambition, together with those projects which, during
   almost half a century, had alarmed and agitated Europe, filling every
   kingdom in it, by turns, with the terror of his arms, and the dread of
   being subdued by his power." Sepulveda, who visited Charles in his
   retreat, seems to be the only early historian who was aware of his deep
   interest in public affairs, so fully confirmed by the documents.

   [320] "Aus den Legaten seines Testamentes lernt man die Mitglieder
   derselben kennen,--eine ganze Anzahl Kammerdiener, besondere Diener für
   die Fruchtkammer, Obstkammer, Lichtbeschliesserei, Aufbewahrung der
   Kleider, der Juwelen, meist Niederländer, jedoch unter einem spanischen
   Haushofmeister, Louis Quixada. Der Leibarzt und eine Apotheke fehlten
   nicht." Ranke, V. 305. The codicil of Charles, executed a few days
   before his death, specifies the names and vocations of these servants.
   Sandoval and Gachart give the list, the latter more correctly,
   especially in the orthography of Flemish names.

   [321] These and other articles of furniture and outfit are mentioned in
   the inventory. See Sterling, Pichot, and Prescott, I. 302 sqq.

   [322] Prescott, l.c., I. 311.

   [323] The story is told with its later embellishments by Robertson and
   many others. The papers of Simancas, and the private letters of the
   Emperor's major-domo (Quixada) and physician, are silent on the
   subject; and hence Tomas Gonzalez, Mignet (1854 and 1857), and
   Maurenbrecher ("Studien und Skizzen." 1874, p. 132, note) reject the
   whole as a monkish fiction. But the main fact rests on the testimony of
   a Hieronymite monk of Yuste, who was present at the ceremony, and
   recorded the deep impression it made; and it is confirmed by Sandoval,
   who derived his report directly from Yuste. A fuller account is given
   by Siguença, prior of the Escorial, in his general history of the Order
   of St. Jerome (1605); and by Strada, who wrote a generation later, and
   leaves the Emperor in a swoon upon the floor. Stirling, Pichot, Juste,
   Gachard (1855), Prescott (Phil. II., Vol. I., 327 sqq.), and Ranke
   (Vol. V., 309 sq.), accept the fact as told in its more simple form by
   the oldest witness. It is quite consistent with the character of
   Charles; for, as Prescott remarks (p. 332), "there was a taint of
   insanity in the royal blood of Castile."

   [324] Commonly called Dr. Cazalla. See on him Dr. Stoughton, The
   Spanish Reformers, p. 204 sq.

   [325] Gachard, II. 461. Ranke, V. 308. Prescott, I. 325 sq.

   [326] His long trial is told by Prescott, Philip the Second, I. 337,
   437 sqq.; and by Stoughton, The Spanish Reformers, pp. 185 sqq.

   [327] Deutsche Gesch., vol. V. 311.

   [328] The convent was robbed of its richest treasures by the French
   invaders in 1808, and by the Carlists in 1837. Some of the finest
   pictures were removed to the museum of Madrid. There still remains a
   considerable library; the books are richly bound, but their gilt backs
   are turned inside. The Rev. Fritz Fliedner, an active and hopeful
   Protestant evangelist in Madrid, with whom I visited the Escorial in
   May, 1886, bought there the ruins of a house and garden, which was
   built and temporarily occupied by Philip II. (while the
   palace-monastery was in process of construction), and fitted it up for
   an orphan-home, in which day by day the Scriptures are read, and
   evangelical hymns are sung, in the Spanish tongue.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 53. The Diet of Worms. 1521.

   I. Sources. Acta et res gestae D. M. Luth. in Comitiis Principum
   Wormatiae. Anno 1521. 4°. Acta Lutheri in Comitiis Wormatiae ed.
   Pollicarius, Vitb. 1546. These and other contemporary documents are
   reprinted in the Jena ed. of Luther's Opera (1557), vol. II.; in
   Walch's German ed., vols. XV., 2018-2325, and XXII., 2026 sqq.; and the
   Erlangen-Frankf. ed. of the Opera Lat., vol. VI. (1872); Vermischte
   deutsche Schriften, vol. XII. (or Sämmtl. Werke, vol. LXIV., pub.
   1855), pp. 366-383. Förstemann: Neues Urkundenbuch, 1842, vol. I.
   Luther's Letters to Spalatin, Cuspinianus, Lucas Cranach, Charles V.,
   etc., see in De Wette, I. 586 sqq. Spalatin: Ann. Spalatin is also,
   according to Köstlin, the author of the contemporary pamphlet: Etliche
   wunderliche fleissige Handlung in D. M. Luther's Sachen durch
   geistliche und weltliche Fürsten des Reich's; but Brieger (in his
   "Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch.," Gotha, 1886, p. 482 sqq.) ascribes it
   to Rudolph von Watzdorf.

   On the Roman-Cath. side, Cochläus (who was present at Worms):
   Pallavicini (who used the letters of Aleander); and especially the
   letters and dispatches of Aleander, now published as follows: Johann
   Friedrich: Der Reichstag zu Worms im Jahr 1521. Nach den Briefen des
   päpstlichen Nuntius Hieronymus Aleander. In the "Abhandlungen der
   Bayer. Akad.," vol. XI. München, 1870. Pietro Balan (R. Cath.):
   Monumenta Reform. Lutheranae ex tabulariis S. Sedis secretis.
   1521-1525. Ratisb. Fasc. I., 1883. Contains Aleander's reports from the
   papal archives, and is one of the first fruits of the liberal policy of
   Leo XIII. in opening the literary treasures of the Vatican. Theod.
   Brieger (Prof. of Ch. Hist. in Leipzig): Aleander und Luther, 1521. Die
   vervollständigten Aleander-Depeschen nebst Untersuchungen über den
   Wormser Reichstag. 1 Abth. Gotha, 1884 (315 pages). Gives the Aleander
   dispatches in Italian and Latin from a MS. in the library of Trent, and
   supplements and partly corrects, in the chronology, the edition of
   Balan.

   II. Special Treatises. Boye: Luther zu Worms. Halle, 1817, 1824.
   Zimmer: Luther zu Worms. Heidelb. 1521. Tuzschmann: Luther in Worms.
   Darmstadt, 1860. Soldan: Der Reichstag zu Worms. Worms, 1863. Steitz:
   Die Melanchthon- und Luther-Herbergen zu Frankfurt-a.-M. Frankf., 1861.
   Contains the reports of the Frankfurt delegate Fürstenberg, and other
   documents. Hennes (R. Cath.): M. Luther's Aufenthalt in Worms. Mainz,
   1868. Waltz: Der Wormser Reichstag und seine Beziehungen zur
   reformator. Bewegung, in the "Forschungen zur deutschen Gesch."
   Göttingen, 1868, VIII. pp. 21-44. Dan. Schenkel: Luther in Worms.
   Elberfeld, 1870. Jul. Köstlin: Luther's Rede in Worms am 18. April,
   1521. Halle, 1874 (the best on Luther's famous declaration).
   Maurenbrecher: Der Wormser Reichstag von 1521, in his "Studien und
   Skizzen zur Gesch. der Reform. Zeit," Leipzig, 1874 (pp. 241-275); also
   in his Gesch. der kathol. Reformation, Nördlingen, 1880, vol. I., pp.
   181-201. Karl Jansen (not to be confounded with the Rom.-Cath.
   Janssen): Aleander am Reichstage zu Worms, 1521. Kiel, 1883 (72 pages).
   Corrects Friedrich's text of Aleander's letters. Th. Kolde: Luther und
   der Reichstag zu Worms. 2d ed. Halle, 1883. Brieger: Neue Mittheilungen
   über L. in Worms. Program to the Luther jubilee, Marburg, 1883 (a
   critique of Balan's Monumenta). Kalkoff: Germ. transl. of the Aleander
   Dispatches, Halle, 1886. Elter: Luther u. der Wormser Reichstag. Bonn,
   1886.

   III. Ranke, I. 311-343. Gieseler, IV. 56-58 (Am. ed.). Merle D'aub.,
   bk. VII. chs. I. -XI. Hagenbach, III. 103-109. G. P. Fisher, pp.
   108-111. Köstlin, chs. XVII. and XVIII. (I. 411-466). Kolde, I. 325
   sqq. Janssen (R. Cath.), II. 131-166. G. Weber: Das Zeitalter der
   Reformation (vol. X. of his Weltgeschichte), Leipzig, 1886, pp.
   162-178. Baumgarten: Gesch. Karls V. Leipzig, l885, vol. I. 379-460.

   On the 28th of January, 1521, Charles V. opened his first Diet at
   Worms. This was a free imperial city on the left bank of the Rhine, in
   the present grand-duchy of Hesse. [329] It is famous in German song as
   the scene of the Niebelungenlied, which opens with King Günther of
   Worms and his sister Chriemhild, the world's wonder for grace and
   beauty. It is equally famous in ecclesiastical history for "the
   Concordat of Worms," which brought to an end the long contest between
   the Emperor and the Pope about investiture (Sept. 23, 1122). But its
   greatest fame the city acquired by Luther's heroic stand on the word of
   God and the rights of conscience, which made the Diet of 1521 one of
   the most important in the history of German Diets. After that event two
   conferences of Protestant and Roman-Catholic leaders were held in
   Worms, to heal the breach of the Reformation,--one in 1541, and one in
   1557; but both failed of their object. In 1868 (June 25) a splendid
   monument to Luther and his fellow-laborers by Rietschel was erected at
   Worms, and dedicated with great national enthusiasm. [330]

   The religious question threw all the political and financial questions
   into the background, and absorbed the attention of the public mind.

   At the very beginning of the Diet a new papal brief called upon the
   Emperor to give, by an imperial edict, legal force to the bull of
   January 3, by which Luther was finally excommunicated, and his books
   condemned to the flames. The Pope urged him to prove his zeal for the
   unity of the Church. God had girded him with supreme earthly power,
   that he might use it against heretics who were much worse than
   infidels. [331] On Maundy Thursday, March 28, the Pope, in proclaiming
   the terrible bull In Coena Domini, which is annually read at Rome,
   expressly condemned, among other heretics, Martin Luther by name with
   all his adherents. This was the third or fourth excommunication, but
   produced little effect. [332]

   The Pope was ably represented by two Italian legates, who were
   afterwards created cardinals, -Marino Caracciolo (1459-1538) for the
   political affairs, and Jerome Aleander (1480-1542) for the
   ecclesiastical interests. Aleander was at that time librarian of the
   Vatican, and enjoyed great reputation as a Greek scholar. He had
   lectured at Paris before two thousand bearers of all classes. He stood
   in friendly relations to Erasmus; but when the latter showed sympathy
   with the Reformation, be denounced him as the chief founder of the
   Lutheran heresy. He was an intense papist, and skilled in all the arts
   of diplomacy. His religious wants were not very pressing. During the
   Diet of Worms he scarcely found time, in the holy week, "to occupy
   himself a little with Christ and his conscience." His sole object was
   to maintain the power of the Pope, and to annihilate the new heresy. In
   his letters he calls Luther a fool, a dog, a basilisk, a ribald. He
   urged everywhere the wholesale burning of his books. [333] He employed
   argument, persuasion, promises, threats, spies, and bribes. He
   complained that he could not get money enough from Rome for greedy
   officials. He labored day and night with the Emperor, his confessor,
   and the members of the privy council. He played on their fears of a
   popular revolution, and reminded them of the example of the Bohemians,
   the worst and most troublesome of heretics. He did not shrink from the
   terrible threat, "If ye Germans who pay least into the Pope's treasury
   shake off his yoke, we shall take care that ye mutually kill
   yourselves, and wade in your own blood." He addressed the Diet, Feb.
   13, in a speech of three hours, and contended that Luther's final
   condemnation left no room for a further hearing of the heretic, but
   imposed upon the Emperor and the Estates the simple duty to execute the
   requirements of the papal bull.

   The Emperor hesitated between his religious impulses--which were
   decidedly Roman Catholic, though with a leaning towards disciplinary
   reform through a council--and political considerations which demanded
   caution and forbearance. He had already taken lessons in the art of
   dissimulation, which was deemed essential to a ruler in those days. He
   had to respect the wishes of the Estates, and could not act without
   their consent. Public sentiment was divided, and there was a
   possibility of utilizing the dissatisfaction with Rome for his
   interest. He was displeased with Leo for favoring the election of
   Francis, and trying to abridge the powers of the Spanish Inquisition;
   and yet he felt anxious to secure his support in the impending struggle
   with France, and the Pope met him half-way by recalling his steps
   against the Inquisition. He owed a debt of gratitude to the Elector
   Frederick, and had written to him, Nov. 28, 1520, to bring Luther to
   Worms, that he might have a hearing before learned men; but the Elector
   declined the offer, fearing the result. On the 17th of December, the
   Emperor advised him to keep Luther at Wittenberg, as he had been
   condemned at Rome.

   At first be inclined to severe measures, and laid the draft of an edict
   before the Diet whereby the bull of excommunication should be legally
   enforced throughout all Germany. But this was resisted by the Estates,
   and other influences were brought to bear upon him. Then he tried
   indirectly, and in a private way, a compromise through his confessor,
   John Glapio, a Franciscan friar, who professed some sympathy with
   reform, and respect for Luther's talent and zeal. He held several
   interviews with Dr. Brück (Pontanus), the Chancellor of the Elector
   Frederick. He assured him of great friendship, and proposed that he
   should induce Luther to disown or to retract the book on the
   "Babylonian Captivity," which was detestable; in this case, his other
   writings, which contained so much that is good, would bear fruit to the
   Church, and Luther might co-operate with the Emperor in the work of a
   true (that is, Spanish) reformation of ecclesiastical abuses. We have
   no right to doubt his sincerity any more than that of the like-minded
   Hadrian VI., the teacher of Charles. But the Elector would not listen
   to such a proposal, and refused a private audience to Glapio. His
   conference with Hutten and Sickingen on the Ebernburg was equally
   unsuccessful. [334]

   The Estates were in partial sympathy with the Reformation, not from
   doctrinal and religious, but from political and patriotic motives; they
   repeated the old one hundred and one gravamina against the tyranny and
   extortions of the Roman See [335] (similar to the charges in Luther's
   Address to the German Nobility), and resisted a condemnation of Luther
   without giving him a hearing. Even his greatest enemy, Duke George of
   Saxony, declared that the Church suffered most from the immorality of
   the clergy, and that a general reformation was most necessary, which
   could be best secured by a general council.

   During the Diet, Ulrich von Hutten exerted all his power of invective
   against the Pope and for Luther. He was harbored at Ebernburg, a few
   leagues from Worms, with his friend, the valorous Francis of Sickingen.
   He poured contempt and ridicule on the speech of Aleander, and even
   attempted to catch him and Caracciolo by force. [336] But he and
   Sickingen favored, at the same time, the cause of the young Emperor,
   from whom they expected great things, and wished to bring about an
   anti-papal revolution with his aid. Hutten called upon him to dismiss
   his clerical counsellors, to stand on his own dignity, to give Luther a
   hearing, and to build up a free Germany. Freedom was now in the air,
   and all men of intelligence longed for a new and better order of
   things. [337]

   Aleander was scarcely safe on the street after his speech of February
   13. He reported to his master, that for nine-tenths of the Germans the
   name of Luther was a war-cry, and that the last tenth screamed "Death
   to the court of Rome!" Cochlaeus, who was in Worms as the theological
   adviser of the Archbishop of Treves, feared a popular uprising against
   the clergy.

   Luther was the hero of the day, and called a new Moses, a second Paul.
   His tracts and picture, surrounded by a halo of glory, were freely
   circulated in Worms. [338]

   At last Charles thought it most prudent to disregard the demand of the
   Pope. In an official letter of March 6, he cited Luther to appear
   before the Diet within twenty-one days under the sure protection of the
   Empire. The Elector Frederick, Duke George of Saxony, and the Landgrave
   of Hesse, added letters of safe-conduct through their respective
   territories. [339]

   Aleander now endeavored to make the appearance of Luther as harmless as
   possible, and succeeded in preventing any discussion with him. The
   heretic was simply to recant, or, in case of refusal, to suffer the
   penalties of excommunication.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [329] Worms is 26 miles S. S. E. of Mainz (Mayence or Mentz, the
   ancient Moguntiacum, the capital of Rhenish Hesse since 1815), and has
   now over 20,000 inhabitants, about one-half of them Protestants, but in
   the beginning of the seventeenth century it had 70,000. It was almost
   destroyed under Louis XIV. (1683). The favorite German wine,
   Liebfrauenmilch, is cultivated in its neighborhood. H. Boos,
   Urkundenbuch der Stadt Worms, Berlin, 1886.

   [330] See description of the celebration by Dr. Friedrich Eich,
   Gedenkblätter, Worms, 1868; and his book on the controversy about the
   locality of the Diet, In welchem Locale stand Luther zu Worms vor
   Kaiser und Reich? Leipzig, 1863. He decides for the Bishofshof (against
   the Rathhaus).

   [331] "Multo deteriores haereticos." The new papal bull of
   condemnation, together with a brief to the Emperor, arrived in Worms
   the 10th of February. Aleander addressed the Diet three days after, on
   Ash Wednesday. Ranke, I. 329. Köstlin, I., 422 sq.

   [332] Luther published this bull afterwards with biting, abusive, and
   contemptuous comments, under the title, Die Bulla vom Abendfressen des
   allerheiligsten, Herrn, des Papsts. In Walch XV. 2127 sqq. Merle
   d'Aubigné gives characteristic extracts, Bk. VII. ch. 5.

   [333] Janssen, who praises him very highly, remarks (II. 144): "Um der
   Häresie Einhalt zu thun, hielt Aleander die Verbrennung der
   lutherischen Bücher für ein überaus geeignetes Mittel." But I can not
   see why he says (p. 142) that Aleander prided himself on being "a
   German." Aleander was born in Italy, hated the Germans, and died in
   Rome.

   [334] See Brück's conversations with Glapio in Förstemann, I., pp. 53,
   54. Erasmus and Hutten regarded him as a crafty hypocrite, who wished
   to ruin Luther. Strauss agrees, Ulrich von Hutten, p. 405. But
   Maurenbrecher, (Studien, etc., pp. 258 sqq., and Gesch. der kath. Ref.,
   I. 187 sqq.) thinks that Glapio presented the program of the imperial
   policy of reform. Janssen, II., 153 sq., seems to be of the same
   opinion.

   [335] See the list in Walch, XV., 2058 sqq.

   [336] Luther, in a letter to Spalatin (Nov. 23, 1520, In De Wette I.
   523), in a moment of indignation expressed a wish that Hutten might
   have intercepted (utinam --Intercepisset) the legates, but not
   murdered, as Romanists (Janssen, twice, II. 104, 143) misinterpret it.
   See Köstlin, I. 411, and note on p. 797.

   [337] See Aleander's dispatches in Brieger, l.c. I. pp. 119 sqq.;
   Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten, 4th ed., pp. 395 sqq.; and Ullmann, Franz
   von Sickingen (Leipzig, 1872).

   [338] Aleander reports (April 13) that Luther was painted with the Holy
   Spirit over his head (el spirito santo sopra it capo, come to
   depingono). Brieger, I. 139.

   [339] The letters of safe-conduct are printed in Walch, XV., 2122-2127,
   and Förstemann, Neues Urkundenbuch, I., 61 sq. In the imperial letter
   signed by Albert, Elector and Archbishop of Mayence and Chancellor of
   the Empire, Luther is addressed as "honorable, well-beloved, pious"
   (Ehrsamer, Geliebter, Andächtiger; in the Latin copy, Honorabilis,
   Dilecte, Devote), much to the chagrin of the Romanists.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 54. Luther's Journey to Worms.

   "Mönchlein, Mönchlein, Du gehest einen schweren Gang."

   Luther, from the first intimation of a summons by the Emperor, regarded
   it as a call from God, and declared his determination to go to Worms,
   though he should be carried there sick, and at the risk of his life.
   His motive was not to gratify an unholy ambition, but to bear witness
   to the truth. He well knew the tragic fate which overtook Hus at
   Constance notwithstanding the safe-conduct, but his faith inspired him
   with fearless courage. "You may expect every thing from me," he wrote
   to Spalatin, "except fear or recantation. I shall not flee, still less
   recant. May the Lord Jesus strengthen me." [340]

   He shared for a while the hope of Hutten and Sickingen, that the young
   Emperor would give him at least fair play, and renew the old conflict
   of Germany with Rome; but he was doomed to disappointment.

   While the negotiations in Worms were going on, he used incessantly his
   voice and his pen, and alternated between devotional and controversial
   exercises. He often preached twice a day, wrote commentaries on
   Genesis, the Psalms, and the Magnificat (the last he finished in
   March), and published the first part of his Postil (Sermons on the
   Gospels and Epistles), a defense of his propositions condemned by Rome,
   and fierce polemical books against Hieronymus Emser, Ambrose
   Catharinus, and other papal opponents.

   Emser, a learned Romanist, and secretary of Duke George of Saxony, had
   first attacked Luther after the Leipzig disputation, at which he was
   present. A bitter controversy followed, in which both forgot dignity
   and charity. Luther called Emser "the Goat of Leipzig" (in reference to
   the escutcheon of his family), and Emser called Luther in turn, the
   Capricorn of Wittenberg." Luther's Antwort auf das überchristliche,
   übergeistliche, und überkünstliche Buch Bock Emser's, appeared in
   March, 1521, and defends his doctrine of the general priesthood of
   believers. [341] Emser afterwards severely criticised Luther's
   translation of the Bible, and published his own version of the New
   Testament shortly before his death (1527).

   Catharinus, [342] an eminent Dominican at Rome, had attacked Luther
   toward the end of December, 1520. Luther in his Latin reply tried to
   prove from Dan. 8:25 sqq.; 2 Thess. 2:3 sqq.; 2 Tim. 4:3 sqq.; 2 Pet.
   2:1 sqq.; and the Epistle of Jude, that popery was the Antichrist
   predicted in the Scriptures, and would soon be annihilated by the Lord
   himself at his second coming, which he thought to be near at hand.

   It is astonishing that in the midst of the war of theological passions,
   he could prepare such devotional books as his commentaries and sermons,
   which are full of faith and practical comfort. He lived and moved in
   the heart of the Scriptures; and this was the secret of his strength
   and success.

   On the second of April, Luther left Wittenberg, accompanied by Amsdorf,
   his friend and colleague, Peter Swaven, a Danish student, and Johann
   Pezensteiner, an Augustinian brother. Thus the faculty, the students,
   and his monastic order were represented. They rode in an open farmer's
   wagon, provided by the magistrate of the city. The imperial herald in
   his coat-of-arms preceded on horseback. Melanchthon wished to accompany
   his friend, but he was needed at home. "If I do not return," said
   Luther in taking leave of him, "and my enemies murder me, I conjure
   thee, dear brother, to persevere in teaching the truth. Do my work
   during my absence: you can do it better than I. If you remain, I can
   well be spared. In thee the Lord has a more learned champion."

   At Weimar, Justus Jonas joined the company. He was at that time
   professor and Canon at Erfurt. In June of the same year he moved to
   Wittenberg as professor of church law and provost, and became one of
   the most intimate friends and co-workers of Luther. He accompanied him
   on his last journey to Eisleben, and left us a description of his
   closing days. He translated several of his and Melanchthon's works.

   The journey to Worms resembled a March of triumph, but clouded with
   warnings of friends and threats of foes. In Leipzig, Luther was
   honorably received by the magistrate, notwithstanding his enemies in
   the University. In Thuringia, the people rushed to see the man who had
   dared to defy the Pope and all the world.

   At Erfurt, where he had studied law and passed three years in a
   monastic cell, he was enthusiastically saluted, and treated as "the
   hero of the gospel." Before he reached the city, a large procession of
   professors and students of his alma mater, headed by his friends Crotus
   the rector, and Eoban the Latin poet, met him. Everybody rushed to see
   the procession. The streets, the walls, and roofs were covered with
   people, who almost worshiped Luther as a wonder-working saint. The
   magistrate gave him a banquet, and overwhelmed him with demonstrations
   of honor. He lodged in the Augustinian convent with his friend Lange.
   On Sunday, April 7, he preached on his favorite doctrine, salvation by
   faith in Jesus Christ, and against the intolerable yoke of popery.
   Eoban, who heard him, reports that he melted the hearts as the vernal
   sun melts the snow, and that neither Demosthenes nor Cicero nor Paul so
   stirred their audiences as Luther's sermon stirred the people on the
   shores of the Gera. [343]

   During the sermon a crash in the balconies of the crowded church seared
   the hearers, who rushed to the door; but Luther allayed the panic by
   raising his hand, and assuring them that it was only a wicked sport of
   the Devil. [344]

   In Gotha and Eisenach he preached likewise to crowded houses. At
   Eisenach he fell sick, and was bled; but a cordial and good sleep
   restored him sufficiently to proceed on the next day. He ascribed the
   sickness to the Devil, the recovery to God. In the inns, he used to
   take up his lute, and to refresh himself with music.

   He arrived at Frankfurt, completely exhausted, on Sunday, April 14. On
   Monday he visited the high school of William Nesse, blessed the
   children and exhorted them "to be diligent in reading the Scriptures
   and investigating the truth." He also became acquainted with a noble
   patrician family, von Holzhausen, who took an active part in the
   subsequent introduction of the Reformation in that city. [345]

   As he proceeded, the danger increased, and with it his courage. Before
   be left Wittenberg, the Emperor had issued an edict ordering all his
   books to be seized, and forbidding their sale. [346] The herald
   informed him of it already at Weimar, and asked him, "Herr Doctor, will
   ye proceed?" He replied, "Yes." The edict was placarded in all the
   cities. Spalatin, who knew the critical situation, warned him by
   special messenger, in the name of the Elector his patron, not to come
   to Worms, lest he might suffer the fate of Hus. [347]

   Luther comforted his timid friends with the words: Though Hus was
   burned, the truth was not burned, and Christ still lives. He wrote to
   Spalatin from Frankfurt, that he had been unwell ever since he left
   Eisenach, and had heard of the Emperor's edict, but that he would go to
   Worms in spite of all the gates of hell and the evil spirits in the
   air. [348] The day after, he sent him from Oppenheim (between Mainz and
   Worms) the famous words: -

   "I shall go to Worms, though there were as many devils there as tiles
   on the roofs." [349]

   A few days before his death at Eisleben, he thus described his feelings
   at that critical period: "I was fearless, I was afraid of nothing; God
   can make one so desperately bold. I know not whether I could be so
   cheerful now." [350] Mathesius says, with reference to this courage:
   "If the cause is good, the heart expands, giving courage and energy to
   evangelists and soldiers."

   Sickingen invited Luther, through Martin Bucer, in person, to his
   castle Ebernburg, where he would be perfectly safe under the protection
   of friends. Glapio favored the plan, and wished to have a personal
   conference with Luther about a possible compromise and co-operation in
   a moderate scheme of reform. But Luther would not be diverted from his
   aim, and sent word, that, if the Emperor's confessor wished, he could
   see him in Worms.

   Luther arrived in Worms on Tuesday morning, April 16, 1521, at ten
   o'clock, shortly before early dinner, in an open carriage with his
   Wittenberg companions, preceded by the imperial herald, and followed by
   a number of gentlemen on horseback. He was dressed in his monastic
   gown. [351] The watchman on the tower of the cathedral announced the
   arrival of the procession by blowing the horn, and thousands of people
   gathered to see the heretic. [352]

   As he stepped from the carriage, he said, "God will be with me."

   The papal legate reports this fact to Rome, and adds that Luther looked
   around with the eyes of a demon. [353] Cardinal Cajetan was similarly
   struck at Augsburg with the mysterious fire of the "profound eyes," and
   the "wonderful speculations," of the German monk.

   Luther was lodged in the house of the Knights of St. John with two
   counselors of the Elector. He received visitors till late at night.
   [354]

   The city was in a fever-heat of excitement and expectation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [340] Letter of Dec. 21, 1520 (De Wette, I., 534, 536): "Ego vero, si
   vocatus fuero, quantum per me stabit, vel aegrotus advehar, si sanus
   venire non possem. Neque enim dubitari fas est, a Domino me vocari, si
   Caesar vocat. ... Omnia de me praesumas praeter fugam et palinodiam:
   fugere ipse nolo, recantare multo minus. Ita me comfortet Dominus
   Jesus."

   [341] On the Emser controversy see Erl. Frkf. ed., vol. XXVII.

   [342] His proper name was Lancelot Politi. See Lämmer,
   Vortridentinische Theologie, p. 21, and Burkhardt, Luther's
   Briefwechsel, p. 38. Luther calls him "insulsus et stolidus Thomista,"
   in a letter to Spalatin, March 7, 1521 (De Wette, I. 570).

   [343] A full description of the reception at Erfurt, with extracts from
   the speech of Crotus and the poems of Eoban, is given by Professor
   Kampschulte (a liberal Catholic historian), in his valuable monograph,
   Die Universität Erfurt, vol. II. 95-100."It seems," he says, "that the
   nation at this moment wished to make every effort to assure Luther of
   his vocation. The glorifications which he received from the 2d to the
   16th of April no doubt contributed much to fill him with that
   self-confidence which he manifested in the decisive hour. Nowhere was
   he received more splendidly than at Erfurt."

   [344] "Seid still," he said, "liebes Volk, es ist der Teufel, der
   richtet so eine Spiegelfechterei an; seid still, es hat keine Noth."
   Some of his indiscreet admirers called this victory over the imaginary
   Devil the first miracle of Luther. The second miracle, they thought, he
   performed at Gotha, where the Devil played a similar trick in the
   church, and met with the same defeat.

   [345] His brief sojourn at Frankfurt, and his contact with the
   Holzhausen family, is made the subject of an interesting historical
   novel: Haman von Holzhausen. Eine Frankfurter Patriziergeschichte nach
   Fainilienpapieren erzählt von M. K. [Maria Krummacher]. Bielefeld and
   Leipzig, 1885. See especially chap. XX., pp. 253, sqq.

   [346] The edict is dated March 10. See Burkhardt, Luther's Briefwechsel
   (1866), p. 38, who refers to Spalatin's MS. Seidemann dates the letter
   from March 2. Ranke, in the sixth ed. (1881), I. 333, says that it was
   published March 27, on the doors of the churches at Worms. Luther
   speaks of it in his Eisleben report, and says that the edict was a
   device of the Archbishop of Mainz to keep him away from Worms, and
   tempt him to despise the order of the Emperor. Works, Erl. Frankf. ed.,
   LXIV. 367.

   [347] Notwithstanding this danger, Janssen thinks (II. 158) that it
   required no "special courage" for Luther to go to Worms.

   [348] April 14 (De Wette, I. 587): "Christus vivit, et intrabimus
   Wormatiam invitis omnibus portis inferni et potentatibus aeris" (Eph.
   2:2).

   [349] Spalatin reports the saying thus: "Dass er mir Spalatino aus
   Oppenheim gen Worms schrieb: 'Er wollte gen Worms wenn gleich so viel
   Teufel darinnen wären als immer Ziegel da wären' " (Walch, XV. 2174). A
   year afterwards, in a letter to the Elector Frederick, March 5, 1522
   (De Wette, II 139), Luther gives the phrase with this modification: "Er
   [the Devil] sah mein Herz wohl, da ich zu Worms einkam, dass, wenn ich
   hätte gewusst, dass so viel Teufel auf mich gehalten hätten, als Ziegel
   auf den Dächern sind, wäre ich dennoch mitten unter sie gesprungen mit
   Freuden." In the verbal report he gave to his friends at Eisleben in
   1546 (Erl. Frankf. ed., vol. LXIV. p. 368): "Ich entbot ihm
   [Spalatin]wieder: 'Wenn so viel Teufel zu Worms wären als Ziegel auf
   den Dächern, noch [doch]wollt ich hinein.'"

   [350] Ibid: "Denn ich war unerschrocken, fürchtete mich nichts; Gott
   kann einen wohl so toll machen. Ich weiss nicht, ob ich jetzt auch so
   freudig wäre."

   [351] See Luther's picture of that year, by Cranach, in the small
   biography of Köstlin, p. 237 (Scribner's ed.). It is very different
   from those to which we are accustomed.

   [352] "Nun fuhr ich," says Luther (LXIV. 368), "auf einem offenen
   Wäglein in meiner Kappen zu Worms ein. Da kamen alle Leute auf die
   Gassen und wollten den Mönch D. Martinum sehen."

   [353] Aleander to Vice-Chancellor Medici, from Worms, April 16: "Esso
   Luther in descensu currus versis huc et illuc demoniacis oculis disse:
   'Deus erit pro me.' " Brieger, I. 143.

   [354] "Tutto il mondo," writes Aleander in the same letter, "went to
   see Luther after dinner."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 55. Luther's Testimony before the Diet.

   April 17 and 18, 1521.

   See Lit. in § 53.

   On the day after his arrival, in the afternoon at four o'clock, Luther
   was led by the imperial marshal, Ulrich von Pappenheim, and the herald,
   Caspar Sturm, through circuitous side-streets, avoiding the impassable
   crowds, to the hall of the Diet in the bishop's palace where the
   Emperor and his brother Ferdinand resided. He was admitted at about six
   o'clock. There he stood, a poor monk of rustic manners, yet a genuine
   hero and confessor, with the fire of genius and enthusiasm flashing
   from his eyes and the expression of intense earnestness and
   thoughtfulness on his face, before a brilliant assembly such as he had
   never seen: the young Emperor, six Electors (including his own
   sovereign), the Pope's legates, archbishops, bishops, dukes, margraves,
   princes, counts, deputies of the imperial cities, ambassadors of
   foreign courts, and a numerous array of dignitaries of every rank; in
   one word, a fair representation of the highest powers in Church and
   State. [355] Several thousand spectators were collected in and around
   the building and in the streets, anxiously waiting for the issue.

   Dr. Johann von Eck, [356] as the official of the Archbishop of Treves,
   put to him, in the name of the Emperor, simply two questions in Latin
   and German,--first, whether he acknowledged the books laid before him
   on a bench (about twenty-five in number) to be his own; and, next,
   whether he would retract them. Dr. Schurf, Luther's colleague and
   advocate, who stood beside him, demanded that the titles of those books
   be read. [357] This was done. Among them were some such inoffensive and
   purely devotional books as an exposition of the Lord's Prayer and of
   the Psalms.

   Luther was apparently overawed by the August assembly, nervously
   excited, unprepared for a summary condemnation without an examination,
   and spoke in a low, almost inaudible tone. Many thought that he was
   about to collapse. He acknowledged in both languages the authorship of
   the books; but as to the more momentous question of recantation he
   humbly requested further time for consideration, since it involved the
   salvation of the soul, and the truth of the word of God, which was
   higher than any thing else in heaven or on earth.

   We must respect him all the more for this reasonable request, which
   proceeded not from want of courage, but from a profound sense of
   responsibility.

   The Emperor, after a brief consultation, granted him "out of his
   clemency" a respite of one day.

   Aleander reported on the same day to Rome, that the heretical "fool"
   entered laughing, and left despondent; that even among his sympathizers
   some regarded him now as a fool, others as one possessed by the Devil;
   while many looked upon him as a saint full of the Holy Spirit; but in
   any case, he had lost much of his reputation. [358]

   The shrewd Italian judged too hastily. On the same evening Luther
   recollected himself, and wrote to a friend: I shall not retract one
   iota, so Christ help me." [359]

   On Thursday, the 18th of April, Luther appeared a second and last time
   before the Diet.

   It was the greatest day in his life. He never appeared more heroic and
   sublime. He never represented a principle of more vital and general
   importance to Christendom.

   On his way to the Diet, an old warrior, Georg von Frundsberg, is
   reported to have clapped him on the shoulder, with these words of
   cheer: "My poor monk, my poor monk, thou art going to make such a stand
   as neither I nor any of my companions in arms have ever done in our
   hottest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause, then
   forward in God's name, and be of good courage: God will not forsake
   thee." [360]

   He was again kept waiting two hours outside the hall, among a dense
   crowd, but appeared more cheerful and confident than the day before. He
   had fortified himself by prayer and meditation, and was ready to risk
   life itself to his honest conviction of divine truth. The torches were
   lighted when he was admitted.

   Dr. Eck, speaking again in Latin and German, reproached him for asking
   delay, and put the second question in this modified form:, Wilt thou
   defend all the books which thou dost acknowledge to be thine, or recant
   some part?"

   Luther answered in a well-considered, premeditated speech, with modesty
   and firmness, and a voice that could be heard all over the hall. [361]

   After apologizing for his ignorance of courtly manners, having been
   brought up in monastic simplicity, he divided his books into three
   classes: [362] (1) Books which simply set forth evangelical truths,
   professed-alike by friend and foe: these he could not retract. (2)
   Books against the corruptions and abuses of the papacy which vexed and
   martyred the conscience, and devoured the property of the German
   nation: these he could not retract without cloaking wickedness and
   tyranny. (3) Books against his popish opponents: in these he confessed
   to have been more violent than was proper, but even these he could not
   retract without giving aid and comfort to his enemies, who would
   triumph and make things worse. In defense of his books he could only
   say in the words of Christ:, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the
   evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?" If his opponents could convict
   him of error by prophetic and evangelical Scriptures, he would revoke
   his books, and be the first to commit them to the flames. He concluded
   with a warning to the young Emperor not to begin his reign by
   condemning the word of God, and pointed to the judgments over Pharaoh,
   the king of Babylon, and the ungodly kings of Israel.

   He was requested to repeat his speech in Latin. [363] This he did with
   equal firmness and with eyes upraised to heaven.

   The princes held a short consultation. Eck, in the name of the Emperor,
   sharply reproved him for evading the question; it was useless, he said,
   to dispute with him about views which were not new, but had been
   already taught by Hus, Wiclif, and other heretics, and had been
   condemned for sufficient reasons by the Council of Constance before the
   Pope, the Emperor, and the assembled fathers. He demanded a round and
   direct answer, without horns."

   This brought on the crisis.

   Luther replied, he would give an answer "with neither horns nor teeth."
   [364] From the inmost depths of his conscience educated by the study of
   the word of God, he made in both languages that memorable declaration
   which marks an epoch in the history of religious liberty: --

   "Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of the Scriptures or
   by clear arguments (since I believe neither the Pope nor the Councils
   alone; it being evident that they have often erred and contradicted
   themselves), I am conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and my
   conscience is bound in the word of God: I can not and will not recant
   any thing, since it is unsafe and dangerous to do any thing against the
   conscience." [365]

   So far the reports are clear and harmonious. What followed immediately
   after this testimony is somewhat uncertain and of less importance.

   Dr. Eck exchanged a few more words with Luther, protesting against his
   assertion that Councils may err and have erred. "You can not prove it,"
   he said. Luther repeated his assertion, and pledged himself to prove
   it. Thus pressed and threatened, amidst the excitement and confusion of
   the audience, he uttered in German, at least in substance, that
   concluding sentence which has impressed itself most on the memory of
   men: --

   "Here I stand. [I can not do otherwise.] God help me! Amen." [366]

   The sentence, if not strictly historical, is true to the situation, and
   expresses Luther's mental condition at the time,--the strength of his
   conviction, and prayer for God's help, which was abundantly answered.
   It furnishes a parallel to Galileo's equally famous, but less
   authenticated, "It does move, for all that" (E pur si muove).

   The Emperor would hear no more, and abruptly broke up the session of
   the Diet at eight o'clock, amid general commotion.

   On reaching his lodgings, Luther threw up his arms, and joyfully
   exclaimed, "I am through, I am through? "To Spalatin, in the presence
   of others, he said, "If I had a thousand beads, I would rather have
   them all cut off one by one than make one recantation."

   The impression he made on the audience was different according to
   conviction and nationality. What some admired as the enthusiasm of
   faith and the strength of conviction, appeared to others as fanaticism
   and heretical obstinacy.

   The Emperor, a stranger to German thought and speech, [367] declared
   after the first hearing: "This man will never make a heretic of me." He
   doubted the authorship of the famous books ascribed to him. [368] At
   the second hearing he was horrified at the disparagement of general
   Councils, as if a German monk could be wiser than the whole Catholic
   Church. The Spaniards and Italians were no doubt of the same opinion;
   they may have been repelled also by his lowly appearance and want of
   refined manners. Some of the Spaniards pursued him with hisses as he
   left the room. The papal legates reported that he raised his hands
   after the manner of the German soldiers rejoicing over a clever stroke,
   and represented him as a vulgar fellow fond of good wine. [369] They
   praised the Emperor as a truly Christian and Catholic prince who
   assured them the next day of his determination to treat Luther as a
   heretic. The Venetian ambassador, otherwise impartial, judged that
   Luther disappointed expectations, and showed neither much learning, nor
   much prudence, nor was he blameless in life. [370]

   But the German delegates received a different impression. When Luther
   left the Bishop's palace greatly exhausted, the old Duke Erik of
   Brunswick sent him a silver tankard of Eimbeck beer, after having first
   drunk of it himself to remove suspicion. Luther said, "As Duke Erik has
   remembered me to-day, may the Lord Jesus remember him in his last
   agony." The Duke thought of it on his deathbed, and found comfort in
   the words of the gospel: "Whosoever shall give unto one of these little
   ones a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, he shall in
   no wise lose his reward." The Elector Frederick expressed to Spalatin
   the same evening his delight with Luther's conduct: "How excellently
   did Father Martin speak both in Latin and German before the Emperor and
   the Estates! He was bold enough, if not too much so." [371] The
   cautious Elector would have been still better pleased if Luther had
   been more moderate, and not attacked the Councils. Persons of
   distinction called on him in his lodgings till late at night, and
   cheered him. Among these was the young Landgrave Philip of Hesse, who
   afterwards embraced the cause of the Reformation with zeal and energy,
   but did it much harm by his bigamy. After a frivolous jest, which
   Luther smilingly rebuked, he wished him God's blessing. [372]

   The strongest sympathizers with Luther were outside of the Diet, among
   the common people, the patriotic nobles, the scholars of the school of
   Erasmus, and the rising generation of liberal men. As he returned from
   the Diet to his lodgings, a voice in the crowd was heard to exclaim:
   "Blessed be the womb that bare this son." Tonstal, the English
   ambassador, wrote from Worms, that "the Germans everywhere are so
   addicted to Luther, that, rather than he should be oppressed by the
   Pope's authority, a hundred thousand of the people will sacrifice their
   lives." [373] In the imperial chambers a paper was found with the
   words: "Woe to the nation whose king is a child" (Eccl. x. 16). [374]
   An uprising of four hundred German knights with eight thousand soldiers
   was threatened in a placard on the city hall; but the storm passed
   away. Hutten and Sickingen were in the Emperor's service. "Hutten only
   barks, but does not bite," was a saying in Worms.

   The papal party triumphed in the Diet. Nothing else could be expected
   if the historic continuity of the Latin Church and of the Holy German
   Roman Empire was to be preserved. Had Luther submitted his case to a
   general council, to which in the earlier stages of the conflict he had
   himself repeatedly appealed, the result might have been different, and
   a moderate reform of the mediaeval Church under the headship of the
   Pope of Rome might have been accomplished; but no more. By denying the
   infallibility of a council, he openly declared himself a heretic, and
   placed himself in opposition to the universal opinion, which regarded
   oecumenical Councils, beginning with the first of Nicaea in 325, as the
   ultimate tribunal for the decision of theological controversies. The
   infallibility of the Pope was as yet an open question, and remained so
   till 1870, but the infallibility of a general council was at that time
   regarded as settled. A protest against it could only be justified by a
   providential mission and actual success.

   It was the will of Providence to prepare the way, through the
   instrumentality of Luther, for independent church-organizations, and
   the development of new types of Christianity on the basis of the word
   of God and the freedom of thought.

   NOTE ON LUTHER'S SENTENCE: "HERE I STAND," ETC.

   These words of Luther have been reported again and again, not only in
   popular books, but in learned histories, without a doubt of their
   genuineness. They are engraven on his monument at Worms.

   But this very fact called forth a critical investigation of the Saxon
   Archivarius, Dr. C. A. H. Burkhardt (author of the learned work:
   Luther's Briefwechsel), Ueber die Glaubwürdigkeit der Antwort Luthers:
   "Hie steh' ich, ich kann nicht anders, Gott helff mir. Amen," in the
   "Theol. Studien und Kritiken" for 1869, III. pp. 517-531. He rejects
   all but the last three words (not the whole, as Janssen incorrectly
   reports, in his History, II. 165, note). His view was accepted by
   Daniel Schenkel (1870), and W. Maurenbrecher (Gesch. d. kath. Reform.,
   1880, I. 398). The latter calls the words even "Improper and unworthy,"
   because theatrical, which we cannot admit.

   On the other hand, Professor Köstlin, the biographer of Luther, has
   come to the rescue of the whole sentence in his Easter-program:
   Luther's Rede in Worms, Halle, 1874; comp. his notes in the "Studien
   und Kritiken" for 1882, p. 551 sq., and his Martin Luther, I. 453, and
   the note, p. 800 sq. (second Ed. 1883). His conclusion was accepted by
   Ranke in the sixth Ed. of his Hist. of Germany (I. 336), and by
   Mönckeberg (pastor of St. Nicolai in Hamburg), who supports it by new
   proofs, in an essay, Die Glaubwürdigkeit des Lutherwortes in Worms, in
   the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1876, No. II. pp. 295-306.

   The facts are these. In Luther's own Latin notes which he prepared,
   probably at Worms, for Spalatin, there is no such sentence except the
   words, "God help me." The prayer which he offered loudly in his chamber
   on the evening before his second appearance before the Diet, and which
   some one has reported, concludes with the words, "Gott helfe mir,
   Amen!" (Walch, X. 1721; Erl. -Frkf. Ed., LXIV. 289 sq.). Spalatin in
   his (defective) notes on the acts of the Diet, preserved at Weimar
   (Gesammtarchiv, Reichtagsacten, 1521), and in his Annals (Ed. by
   Cyprian, p. 41), vouches likewise only for the words, "Gott helfe mir,
   Amen!" With this agrees the original edition of the Acta Lutheri
   Wormatiae habita which were published immediately after the Diet
   (reprinted in the Frankf. ed. of the Opera Lat., vol. VI. p. 14, see
   second foot-note).

   But other contemporary reports give the whole sentence, though in
   different order of the words. See the comparative table of Burkhardt,
   I.c. pp. 525-529. A German report (reprinted in the Erl. -Frkf. ed.,
   vol. LXIV. p. 383) gives as the last words of Luther (in reply to Eck):
   "Gott kumm mir zu Hilf! Amen. Da bin ich." The words "Da bin ich" (Here
   I am) are found also in another source. Mathesius reports the full
   sentence as coming from the lips of Luther in 1540. In a German
   contemporary print and on a fly-leaf in the University library of
   Heidelberg (according to Köstlin), the sentence appears in this order:
   "Ich kann nicht anders; hier steh' ich; Gott helfe mir." In the first
   edition of Luther's Latin works, published 1546, the words appear in
   the present order: "Hier steh' ich," etc. In this form they have passed
   into general currency.

   Köstlin concludes that the only question is about the order of words,
   and whether they were spoken at the close of his main declaration, or a
   little afterwards at the close of the Diet. I have adopted the latter
   view, which agrees with the contemporary German report above quoted.
   Kolde, in his monograph on Luther at Worms (p. 60), agrees
   substantially with Köstlin, and says: "Wir wissen nicht mehr, in
   welchem Zusammenhang diese Worte gesprochen worden sind, auch können
   sie vielleicht etwas anders gelautet haben; bei der herrschenden Unruhe
   hat der eine Berichterstatter den Ausspruch so, der andere ihn so
   verstanden; sicherlich drückten sie zu gleicher Zeit seine felsenfeste
   Überzeugung von der Wahrheit seines in sich gewissen Glaubens aus, wie
   das Bewusstsein, dass hier nur Gott helfen könne."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [355] Walch, XV. 2225-2231, gives a list of over two hundred members of
   the Diet that were present.

   [356] Not to be confounded with the more famous Dr. Eck of Ingolstadt.
   Aleander, who lodged with him on the same floor, calls him "homo
   literatissimo" and "orthodoxo," who had already done good service in
   the execution of the papal demands at Treves. Brieger, I. 146. In a
   dispatch of April 29, he solicits a present for him from the Roman See.
   ("Al official de Treveri un qualche presente sarebbe util," etc., p.
   174). Froude, in his Luther (pp. 32, 33, 35), confounds the Eck of
   Treves with the Eck of Ingolstadt, Aleander with Cajetan, and makes
   several other blunders, which spoil his lively description of the scene
   at Worms.

   [357] "Legantur tituli librorum," he cried aloud.

   [358] Letter to Vice-Chancellor Medici, Worms, April 17, 1521 (in
   Brieger, l.c. p. 147): "El pazzo era entrato ridendo et coram Cesare
   girava il capo continuamente quà et là, alto e basso; poi net partir
   non parea così allegro. Quì molti di quelli et [=etiam]che lo
   favoreggiavano, poi che l'hanno visto, l'hanno existimado chi pazzo,
   chi demoniaco, molti altri santo et pieno di spiritu santo; tutta volta
   ha perso in ogni modo molta reputatione della opinione prima."

   [359] April 17, to John Cuspinianus, an imperial counsellor. See De
   Wette, I. 587 sq.

   [360] "Mönchlein, Mönchlein, du gehst jetzt einen Gang, dergleichen ich
   und mancher Oberster auch in unserer allerernstesten Schlachtordnung
   nicht gethan haben," etc. The saying is reported by Mathesius (who puts
   it on the second day of trial, not on the first, as Köstlin and
   others), by Spangenberg and Seckendorf (Leipzig ed. of 1694, vol. I.
   156, in Latin and German).

   [361] "Respondit Doctor Martinus et ipse latine et germanice, quanquam
   suppliciter, non clamose, ac modeste, non tamen sine Christiana
   animositate et constantia."Acta, etc. (Op. Lat., VI. 9). He began with
   the customary titles: "Allerdurchlauchtigster, grossmächtigster Kaiser,
   Durchlauchtige Churfürsten, gnädigste und gnädige Herren!" These
   fulsome titles are used to this day in Germany, as if a king or emperor
   were mightier than the Almighty I

   [362] In his report at Eisleben, he calls the three classes briefly
   Lehrbücher, Zankbücher, and Disputationes.

   [363] So Luther says himself (in his Eisleben report of the Worms
   events, in the Erl. Frkf. ed., vol. LXIV. 370): "Dieweil ich redete,
   begehrten sie von mir, ich sollt es noch einmal wiederholen mit
   lateinischen Worten ... Ich wiederholte alle meine Worte lateinisch.
   Das gefiel Herzog Friedrich, dem Churfürsten überaus wohl." Spalatin
   confirms this in Epitome Actorum Lutheri, etc.: "Dixit primo germanice,
   deinde latine." Other reports put the Latin speech first; so the Acta
   Luth. (in the Erl. Frkf. ed. of Op. Lat., VI. 9: respondit D. Martinus
   et ipse latine et germanice). Köstlin follows the latter report (I.
   445, 451), and overlooked the testimony of Luther, who must have known
   best.

   [364] In the German text, "ein unstüssige und unbeissige Antwort" (vol.
   LXIV. 382); i.e., an answer neither offensive nor biting--with
   reference, no doubt, to his concluding warning.

   [365] We give also the German and Latin texts."Weil denn Eure
   Kaiserliche Majestät und Eure Gnaden eine schlichte Antwort begehren,
   so will ich eine Antwort ohne Hörner und Zähne geben diesermassen: 'Es
   sei denn, dass ich durch Zeugnisse der Schrift oder durch helle Gründe
   überwunden werde--denn ich glaube weder dem Papst, noch den Konzilien
   allein, dieweil am Tag liegt, dass sie öfters geirrt und sich selbst
   widersprochen haben,--so bin ich überwunden durch die von mir
   angeführten heiligen Schriften, und mein Gewissen ist gefangen in
   Gottes Wort; widerrufen kann ich nichts und will ich nichts, dieweil
   wider das Gewissen zu handeln unsicher und gefährlich ist.' " See
   Köstlin, I. 452. The oldest reports vary a little in the language. Some
   have scheinbarliche und merkliche Ursachen for helle Gründe, and at the
   close:"dieweil wider das Gewissen zu handeln beschwerlich und
   unheilsam, auch gefährlich ist." Werke (Erl. Frkf. ed.), vol. LXIV.
   382.
   The Latin text as given in the Acta Lutheri Wormatiae habita is as
   follows: "Hic Lutherus: Quando ergo serenissima Majestas vestra
   Dominationesque vestrae simplex responsum petunt, dabo illud, neque
   cornutum, neque dentatum, in hunc modum: 'Nisi convictus fuero
   testimoniis Scripturarum, aut ratione evidente (nam neque Papae, neque
   Conciliis solis credo, cum constet eos errasse saepius, et sibi ipsis
   contradixisse), victus sum Scripturis a me adductis captaque est
   conscientia in verbis Dei; revocare neque possum neque volo quidquam,
   cum contra conscientiam agere neque tutum sit, neque integrum.' " Opera
   Lat. (Frankf. ed.), vol. VI. 13 sq.

   [366] "Hier steh' ich. [Ich kann nicht anders.] Gott helfe mir! Amen."
   The bracketed words cannot be traced to a primitive source. See the
   critical note at the close of this section.

   [367] The little German he knew was only the Platt-Deutsch of the Low
   Countries. He always communicated with his German subjects in Latin or
   French, or by the mouth of his brother Ferdinand.

   [368] Aleander (l.c. p. 170): "Cesar palam dixit et sepissime postea
   repetiit, che mai credera che l' habbii composto detti libri." The
   mixing of Latin and Italian is characteristic of the Aleander
   dispatches. He was inclined to ascribe the authorship of the greater
   part of Luther's books to Melanchthon, of whom he says that he has "un
   belissimo, ma malignissimo ingegno (p. 172).

   [369] Aleander and Caracciolo to the Vice-Chancellor Medici, April 19,
   1521 (Brieger, I. 153): "Martino uscito fuora della sala Cesarea alzò
   la mano in alto more militum Germanorum, quando exultano di un bel
   colpo di giostra." In a letter of April 27 (l.c. p. 166), they call
   Luther "il venerabile ribaldo," who before his departure drank in the
   presence of many persons "molte tazze di malvasia, della qual ne è
   forte amoroso." The charge of intemperance is repeated in a dispatch of
   April 29 (p. 170): "la ebrietà, alla quale detto Luther è deditissimo."
   That Luther used to drink beer and wine according to the universal
   custom of his age, is an undoubted fact; but that he was intemperate in
   eating or drinking, is a slander of his enemies. Melanchthon, who knew
   him best, bears testimony to his temperance. See below, the section on
   his private life.

   [370] Contarenus ad Matthaeum Dandalum, quoted by Ranke, I. 336.

   [371] Walch, XV. 2246.

   [372] The interview as related by Luther (Walch, XV. 2247;
   Erlangen-Frankfurt edition, LXIV. 373) is characteristic of this
   prince, and foreshadows his future conduct. "Der Landgraf von Hessen
   kam zu Worms erstlich zu mir. Er war aber noch nicht auf meiner Seiten,
   und kam in Hof geritten, ging zu mir in mein Gemach, wollte mich sehen.
   Er war aber noch sehr jung, sprach: Lieber Herr Doctor, wie geht's? Da
   antwortete ich: Gnädiger Herr, ich hoff, essoll gut werden. Da sagte
   er: Ich höre, Herr Doctor, ihr lehret, wenn ein Mann alt wird und
   seiner Frauen nicht mehr Ehepflicht leisten kann, dass dann die Frau
   mag einen anderen Mann nehmen, und lachte, denn die Hofräthe hatten's
   ihm eingeblasen. Ich aber lachte auch und sagte: Ach nein, gnädiger
   Herr, Euer Fürstlich Gnad sollt nicht also reden. Aber er ging balde
   wieder von mir hinweg, gab mir die Hand und sagte: Habt ihr Recht, Herr
   Doctor, so helfe euch Gott."

   [373] In Fiddes Life of Wolsey, quoted by Ranke, I. 337, note.

   [374] Ranke (I. 337) says "in den kaiserlichen Gemächern." Other
   reports say that these words were placarded in public places at Worms.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 56. Reflections on Luther's Testimony at Worms.

   Luther's testimony before the Diet is an event of world-historical
   importance and far-reaching effect. It opened an intellectual conflict
   which is still going on in the civilized world. He stood there as the
   fearless champion of the supremacy of the word of God over the
   traditions of men, and of the liberty of conscience over the tyranny of
   authority.

   For this liberty, all Protestant Christians, who enjoy the fruit of his
   courage, owe him a debt of gratitude. His recantation could not, any
   more than his martyrdom, have stopped the Reformation; but it would
   have retarded its progress, and indefinitely prolonged the oppressive
   rule of popery.

   When tradition becomes a wall against freedom, when authority
   degenerates into tyranny, the very blessing is turned into a curse, and
   history is threatened with stagnation and death. [375] At such rare
   junctures, Providence raises those pioneers of progress, who have the
   intellectual and moral courage to break through the restraints at the
   risk of their lives, and to open new paths for the onward march of
   history. This consideration furnishes the key for the proper
   appreciation of Luther's determined stand at this historical crisis.

   Conscience is the voice of God in man. It is his most sacred
   possession. No power can be allowed to stand between the gift and the
   giver. Even an erring conscience must be respected, and cannot be
   forced. The liberty of conscience was theoretically and practically
   asserted by the Christians of the ante-Nicene age, against Jewish and
   heathen persecution; but it was suppressed by the union of Church and
   State after Constantine the Great, and severe laws were enacted under
   his successors against every departure from the established creed of
   the orthodox imperial Church. These laws passed from the Roman to the
   German Empire, and were in full force all over Europe at the time when
   Luther raised his protest. Dissenters had no rights which Catholics
   were bound to respect; even a sacred promise given to a heretic might
   be broken without sin, and was broken by the Emperor Sigismund in the
   case of Hus. [376]

   This tyranny was brought to an end by the indomitable courage of
   Luther.

   Liberty of conscience may, of course, be abused, like any other
   liberty, and may degenerate into heresy and licentiousness. The
   individual conscience and private judgment often do err, and they are
   more likely to err than a synod or council, which represents the
   combined wisdom of many. Luther himself was far from denying this fact,
   and stood open to correction and conviction by testimonies of Scripture
   and clear arguments. He heartily accepted all the doctrinal decisions
   of the first four oecumenical Councils, and had the deepest respect for
   the Apostles' Creed on which his own Catechism is based. But he
   protested against the Council of Constance for condemning the opinions
   of Hus, which he thought were in accordance with the Scriptures. The
   Roman Church itself must admit the fallibility of Councils if the
   Vatican decree of papal infallibility is to stand; for more than one
   oecumenical council has denounced Pope Honorius as a heretic, and even
   Popes have confirmed the condemnation of their predecessor. Two
   conflicting infallibilities neutralize each other. [377]

   Luther did not appeal to his conscience alone, but first and last to
   the Scripture as he understood it after the most earnest study. His
   conscience, as he said, was bound in the word of God, who cannot err.
   There, and there alone, he recognized infallibility. By recanting, he
   would have committed a grievous sin.

   One man with the truth on his side is stronger than a majority in
   error, and will conquer in the end. Christ was right against the whole
   Jewish hierarchy, against Herod and Pilate, who conspired in condemning
   him to the cross. St. Paul was right against Judaism and heathenism
   combined, "unus versus mundum;" St. Athanasius, "the father of
   orthodoxy," was right against dominant Arianism; Galileo Galilei was
   right against the Inquisition and the common opinion of his age on the
   motion of the earth; Döllinger was right against the Vatican Council
   when, "as a Christian, as a theologian, as an historian, and as a
   citizen," he protested against the new dogma of the infallibility of
   the Pope. [378]

   That Luther was right in refusing to recant, and that he uttered the
   will of Providence in hearing testimony to the supremacy of the word of
   God and the freedom of conscience, has been made manifest by the
   verdict of history.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [375] The Devil sometimes tells the truth. So Mephistopheles, in
   Goethe's Faust, when he excuses the aversion of the student to the
   study of jurisprudence, and says with a wicked purpose:-- "Es erben
   sich Gesetz' und Rechte Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort; Sie schleppen
   von Geschlecht sich zum Geschlechte Und schleichen sacht von Ort zu
   Ort. Vernunft wird Unsinn, Wohlthat Plage; Weh dir, dass du ein Enkel
   bist! Vom Rechte, das mit uns geboren ist, Von dem ist, leider! nie die
   Frage."

   [376] Dr. (Bishop) Hefele discusses this case at length from the Roman
   Catholic standpoint, in his Conciliengeschichte, vol. VII. (1869), pp.
   218 sqq. He defends Sigismund and the Council of Constance on the
   ground that a salvus conductus protects only against illegal violence,
   but not against the legal course of justice and deserved punishment,
   and that its validity for the return of Hus to Bohemia depended on his
   recantation. But no such condition was expressed in the letter of
   safe-conduct (as given by Hefele, p. 221), which grants Hus freedom to
   come, stay, and return (transire, morari et redire libere). Sigismund
   had expressly promised him "ut salvus ad Bohemiam redirem " (p. 226).
   Such a promise would have been quite unnecessary in case of his
   recantation.

   [377] See my Church Hist., vol. IV. 500 sqq.; and Creeds of
   Christendom, vol. I. 169 sqq.

   [378] Döllinger's declaration of March 28, 1871, for which he was
   excommunicated, April 17, 1871, notwithstanding his eminent services to
   the Roman Catholic Church as her most learned historian, bears some
   resemblance to Luther's declaration at Worms. See Schaff, Creeds of
   Christendom, I. 195 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 57. Private Conferences with Luther. The Emperors Conduct.

   On the morning after Luther's testimony, the Emperor sent a message--a
   sort of personal confession of faith--written by his own hand in
   French, to the Estates, informing them, that in consistency with his
   duty as the successor of the most Christian emperors of Germany and the
   Catholic kings of Spain, who had always been true to the Roman Church,
   he would now treat Luther, after sending him home with his
   safe-conduct, as an obstinate and convicted heretic, and defend with
   all his might the faith of his forefathers and of the Councils,
   especially that of Constance. [379]

   Some of the deputies grew pale at this decision; the Romanists
   rejoiced. But in view of the state of public sentiment the Diet deemed
   it expedient to attempt private negotiations for a peaceful settlement,
   in the hope that Luther might be induced to withdraw or at least to
   moderate his dissent from the general Councils. The Emperor yielded in
   spite of Aleander's protest.

   The negotiations were conducted chiefly by Richard von Greiffenklau,
   Elector and Archbishop of Treves, and at his residence. He was a
   benevolent and moderate churchman, to whom the Elector Frederick and
   Baron Miltitz had once desired to submit the controversy. The Elector
   of Brandenburg, Duke George of Saxony, Dr. Vehus (chancellor of the
   Margrave of Baden), Dr. Eck of Treves, Dean Cochlaeus of Frankfort,
   [380] and the deputies of Strasburg and Augsburg, likewise took part in
   the conferences.

   These men were just as honest as Luther, but they occupied the
   standpoint of the mediaeval Church, and could not appreciate his
   departure from the beaten track. The archbishop was very kind and
   gracious to Luther, as the latter himself admitted. He simply required
   that in Christian humility he should withdraw his objections to the
   Council of Constance, leave the matter for the present with the Emperor
   and the Diet, and promise to accept the final verdict of a future
   council unfettered by a previous decision of the Pope. Such a council
   might re-assert its superiority over the Pope, as the reformatory
   Councils of the fifteenth century had done.

   But Luther had reason to fear the result of such submission, and
   remained as hard as a rock. He insisted on the supremacy of the word of
   God over all Councils, and the right of judging for himself according
   to his conscience. [381] He declared at last, that unless convinced by
   the Scriptures or "clear and evident reasons," he could not yield, no
   matter what might happen to him; and that he was willing to abide by
   the test of Gamaliel, "If this work be of men, it will be overthrown;
   but if it is of God, ye will not be able to overthrow it" (Acts 5:38,
   39). [382]

   He asked the Archbishop, on April 25, to obtain for him the Emperor's
   permission to go home. In returning to his lodgings, he made a pastoral
   visit to a German Knight, and told him in leaving: "To-morrow I go
   away."

   Three hours after the last conference, the Emperor sent him a
   safe-conduct for twenty-one days, but prohibited him from writing or
   preaching on the way. Luther returned thanks, and declared that his
   only aim was to bring about a reformation of the Church through the
   Scriptures, and that he was ready to suffer all for the Emperor and the
   empire, provided only he was permitted to confess and teach the word of
   God. This was his last word to the imperial commissioners. With a shake
   of hands they took leave of each other, never to meet again in this
   world.

   It is to the credit of Charles, that in spite of contrary counsel, even
   that of his former teacher and confessor, Cardinal Hadrian, who wished
   him to deliver Luther to the Pope for just punishment, he respected the
   eternal principle of truth and honor more than the infamous maxim that
   no faith should be kept with heretics. He refused to follow the example
   of his predecessor, Sigismund, who violated the promise of safe-conduct
   given to Hus, and ordered his execution at the stake after his
   condemnation by the Council of Constance. [383] The protection of
   Luther is the only service which Charles rendered to the Reformation,
   and the best thing, in a moral point of view, he ever did. [384]
   Unfortunately, he diminished his merit by his subsequent regret at
   Yuste. [385] He had no other chance to crush the heretic. When he came
   to Wittenberg in 1547, Luther was in his grave, and the Reformation too
   deeply rooted to be overthrown by a short-lived victory over a few
   Protestant princes.

   It is interesting to learn Aleander's speculations about Luther's
   intentions immediately after his departure. He reported to Rome, April
   29, 1521, that the heretic would seek refuge with the Hussites in
   Bohemia, and do four "beastly things" (cose bestiali): 1, write lying
   Acta Wormaciensia, to incite the people to insurrection; 2, abolish the
   confessional; 3, deny the real presence in the sacrament; 4, deny the
   divinity of Christ. [386]

   Luther did none of these things except the second, and this only in
   part. To prevent his entering Bohemia, Rome made provision to have him
   seized on the way.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [379] Walch, XV. 2235-2237.

   [380] John Cochlaeus (his original name was Dobeneck; b. 1479, at
   Wendelstein in Franconia, d. at Bresau, 1552) was at first as a
   humanist an admirer of Luther, but turned against him shortly before
   the Diet of Worms, and became one of his bitterest literary opponents.
   He went to Worms unasked, and wished to provoke him to a public
   disputation. He was employed by the Archbishop of Treves as theological
   counsel, and by Aleander as a spy. Aleander paid him ten guilders "per
   sue spese" (see his dispatch of April 29 in Brieger, I. 175). Cochlaeus
   wrote about 190 books, mostly polemical against the Reformers, and
   mostly forgotten. Luther treated him with great contempt, and usually
   calls him "Doctor Rotzlöffel," also "Kochlöffel." See Works, Erl. ed.,
   XXXI. 270 sq., 276 sq., 302 sq.; LXII. 74, 78. Otto, Johann Cochlaeus,
   der Humanist, Breslau, 1874; Felician Gess, Johannes Cochlaeus, der
   Gegner Luthers, Oppeln, 1886, IV. 62 pages.

   [381] "Gnädiger Herr," he said to the Archbishop of Trier, "ich kann
   alles leiden, aber die heilige Schrift kann ich nicht übergeben." And
   again: "Lieber will ich Kopf und Leben verlieren, als das klare Wort
   Gottes verlassen."

   [382] See the reports on these useless conferences, in Walch, XV.
   2237-2347, 2292-2319; Cochlaeus, Com. de Actis Lutheri, and his
   Colloquium cum Luthero Wormatiae habitum; the report of Hieronymus
   Vehus, published by Seidemann, in the "Zeitschrift für histor. Theol.,"
   1851, p. 80 sqq.; and the report of Aleander in Brieger, I. 157-160.
   Ranke says (I. 332), one might almost be tempted to wish that Luther
   had withdrawn his opposition to the councils, and contented himself for
   the present with the attack upon the abuses of the papacy, in which he
   had the nation with him; but he significantly adds, that the power of
   his spirit would have been broken if it had bound itself to any but
   purely religious considerations. "Der ewig freie Geist bewegt sich in
   seinen eigenen Bahnen."

   [383] It is asserted by Gieseler and Ranke (I. 341) that the Council
   gave official sanction to this maxim by declaring with regard to Hus:
   "Nec aliqua sibi [ei] fides aut promissio de jure naturali, divino vel
   humano fuerit in praejudicium catholicae fidei observanda." Von der
   Hardt, Conc. Const. IV. 521; Mansi, Concil. XXVII. 791. Hefele
   (Conciliengeschichte, VII. 227 sq.) charges Gieseler with sinning
   against the Council and against truth itself, and maintains that this
   decree, which is only found in the Codex Dorrianus at Vienna, was
   merely proposed by a member, and not passed by the Council. But the
   undoubted decree of the 19th Sess., Sept. 23, 1415, declares that a
   safe-conduct, though it should be observed by him who gave it as far as
   he was able, affords no protection against the punishment of a heretic
   if he refuses to recant; and the fact remains that Hus was not
   permitted to return, and was burned in consequence of his condemnation
   by the Council and during its session, July 6, 1415. Aeneas Sylvius
   (afterwards Pope Pius II.) bears to him and Jerome of Prague the
   testimony: "Nemo philosophorum tam forti animo mortem pertulisse
   traditur quam isti incendium." The traditional prophecy of Hus: "Now ye
   burn a goose (anser; Hus in Bohemian means goose); but out of my ashes
   shall rise a swan (cygnus, Luther), which you shall not be able to
   burn," is not authentic, and originated in Luther's time as a
   vaticinium post eventum.

   [384] Ranke says (vol. V. 308): "Es ist die universalhistorisch grösste
   Handlung Karls V., dass er damals das gegebene Wort höher stellte als
   die kirchliche Satzung."

   [385] See above, p. 283.

   [386] Brieger, I. 169 sqq. Aleander says in support of the fourth item,
   that the Lutheran "wretch," Martin Butzer (he calls him Putzer), had
   already fallen into the diabolical Arian heresy, as he had been told by
   the Emperor's confessor, Glapio, who had a conference with Butzer and
   Sickingen.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 58. The Ban of the Empire. May 8 (26), 1521.

   After Luther's departure (April 26), his enemies had full possession of
   the ground. Frederick of Saxony wrote, May 4: "Martin's cause is in a
   bad state: he will be persecuted; not only Annas and Caiaphas, but also
   Pilate and Herod, are against him." Aleander reported to Rome, May 5,
   that Luther had by his bad habits, his obstinacy, and his "beastly"
   speeches against Councils, alienated the people, but that still many
   adhered to him from love of disobedience to the Pope, and desire to
   seize the church property.

   The Emperor commissioned Aleander to draw up a Latin edict against
   Luther. [387] It was completed and dated May 8 (but not signed till May
   26). On the same day the Emperor concluded an alliance with the Pope
   against France. They pledged themselves "to have the same friends and
   the same enemies," and to aid each other in attack and defense.

   The edict was kept back till the Elector Frederick and the Elector of
   the Palatinate with a large number of other members of the Diet had
   gone home. It was not regularly submitted to, nor discussed and voted
   on, by the Diet, nor signed by the Chancellor, but secured by a sort of
   surprise. [388] On Trinity Sunday, May 26, Aleander went with the Latin
   and German copy to church, and induced the Emperor to sign both after
   high mass, "with his pious hand." The Emperor said in French, "Now you
   will be satisfied."--"Yes," replied the legate in the same language,
   "but much more satisfied will be the Holy See and all Christendom, and
   will thank God for such a good, holy, and religious Emperor." [389]

   The edict is not so long, but as turgid, bombastic, intolerant, fierce,
   and Cruel, as the Pope's bull of excommunication. [390] It gave legal
   force to the bull within the German Empire. It denounces Luther as a
   devil in the dress of a monk, who had gathered a mass of old and new
   heresies into one pool, and pronounces upon him the ban and re-ban.
   [391] It commands the burning, and forbids the printing, publication,
   and sale, of his books, the sheltering and feeding of his person, and
   that of his followers, and directs the magistrates to seize him
   wherever he may be found, and to hand him over to the Emperor, to be
   dealt with according to the penal laws against heretics. At the same
   time the whole press of the empire was put under strict surveillance.
   [392]

   This was the last occasion on which the mediaeval union of the secular
   empire with the papacy was expressed in official form so as to make the
   German emperor the executor of the decrees of the bishop of Rome. The
   gravamina of the nation were unheeded. Hutten wrote: "I am ashamed of
   my fatherland." [393]

   Thus Luther was outlawed by Church and State, condemned by the Pope,
   the Emperor, the universities, cast out of human society, and left
   exposed to a violent death.

   But he had Providence and the future on his side. The verdict of the
   Diet was not the verdict of the nation.

   The departure of the Emperor through the Netherlands to Spain, where he
   subdued a dangerous insurrection, his subsequent wars with Francis in
   Italy, the victorious advance of the Turks in Hungary, the protection
   of Luther by the Elector Frederick, and the rapid spread of Protestant
   doctrines, these circumstances, combined to reduce the imperial edict,
   as well as the papal bull, to a dead letter in the greater part of
   Germany. The empire was not a centralized monarchy, but a loose
   confederation of seven great electorates, a larger number of smaller
   principalities, and free cities, each with an ecclesiastical
   establishment of its own. The love of individual independence among the
   rival states and cities was stronger than the love of national union;
   and hence it was difficult to enforce the decisions of the Diet against
   a dissenting minority or even a single recalcitrant member. An attempt
   to execute the edict in electoral Saxony or the free cities by military
   force would have kindled the flame of civil war which no wise and
   moderate ruler would be willing to risk without imperative necessity.
   Charles was an earnest Roman Catholic, but also a shrewd statesman who
   had to consult political interests. Even the Elector Albrecht of Mainz
   prevented, as far as he could, the execution of the bull and ban in the
   dioceses of Mainz, Magdeburg, and Halberstadt. He did not sign the
   edict as chancellor of the empire. [394] Capito, his chaplain and
   private counselor, described him in a letter to Zwingli, Aug. 4, 1521,
   as a promoter of "the gospel," who would not permit that Luther be
   attacked on the pulpit. And this was the prelate who had been intrusted
   by the Pope with the sale of indulgences. Such a change had been
   wrought in public sentiment in the short course of four years.

   The settlement of the religious question was ultimately left to the
   several states, and depended very much upon the religious preferences
   and personal character of the civil magistrate. Saxony, Hesse,
   Brandenburg, the greater part of Northern Germany, also the Palatinate,
   Würtemberg, Nürnberg, Frankfurt, Strassburg, and Ulm, embraced
   Protestantism in whole or in part; while Southern and Western Germany,
   especially Bavaria and Austria, remained predominantly Roman Catholic.
   But it required a long and bloody struggle before Protestantism
   acquired equal legal rights with Romanism, and the Pope protests to
   this day against the Treaty of Westphalia which finally secured those
   rights.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [387] Aleander reports, May 5: "Poi me fù commesso per Cesar et el
   Consilio (the imperial council),che io stesso facesse el decreto, con
   quelle più justificationi si potesse, acciochè il popolo se
   contentasse."

   [388] "Das Edict," says Ranke (i. 342), "ward den Ständen nicht in
   ihrer Versammlung vorgelegt; keiner neuen Deliberation ward es
   unterworfen; unerwartet, in der kaiserlichen Behausung bekamen sie
   Kunde davon, nachdem man nichts versäumt, um sie guenstig zu stimmen;
   die Billigung desselben, die nicht einmal formell genannt werden kann,
   ward ihnen durch eine Art von Ueberraschung abgewonnen."

   [389] Dispatch of May 26. Brieger, I. 224. The edict appeared in print
   on the following Thursday, May 30, and on Friday the Emperor left
   Worms.

   [390] Aleander himself calls it more terrible than any previous edict
   (cosi horribile quanto mai altro editto), June 27, 1521. Brieger, I.
   241. Ranke says (I. 343): "Es war so scharf, so entschieden wie
   möglich."

   [391] Die Acht und Aberacht. The Acht is the civil counterpart of the
   ecclesiastical excommunication and excludes the victim from all
   protection of the law. The Aberacht or Oberacht follows if the Acht
   remains without effect. It is in the German definition die völlige
   Fried- und Rechtslos- oder Vogelfrei-Erklärung. The imperial Acht is
   called the Reichsacht.

   [392] See the edict in full in Walch, XV. 2264-2280. It was published
   officially in Latin and German, and translated into the languages of
   the Dutch and French dominions of Charles. Aleander himself, as he
   says, prepared the French translation.

   [393] Letter to Pirkheimer, May 1, 1521: "Me pudere incipit
   patriae."Opera II. 59.

   [394] Janssen, II. 208 sq.: "Albrecht musste sich beugen vor Luther,
   der Primus vor dem excommunicirten Mönch, welcher ihm mit Enthuellungen
   drohte."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 59. State of Public Opinion. Popular Literature.

   K. Hagen: Der Geist der Reformation und seine Gegensätze. Erlangen,
   1843. Bd. I. 158 sqq. Janssen, II. 181-197, gives extracts from
   revolutionary pamphlets to disparage the cause of the Reformation.

   Among the most potent causes which defeated the ban of the empire, and
   helped the triumph of Protestantism, was the teeming ephemeral
   literature which appeared between 1521 and 1524, and did the work of
   the periodical newspaper press of our days, in seasons of public
   excitement. In spite of the prohibition of unauthorized printing by the
   edict of Worms, Germany was inundated by a flood of books, pamphlets,
   and leaflets in favor of true and false freedom. They created a public
   opinion which prevented the execution of the law.

   Luther had started this popular literary warfare by his ninety-five
   Theses. He was by far the most original, fertile, and effective
   controversialist and pamphleteer of his age. He commanded the resources
   of genius, learning, courage, eloquence, wit, humor, irony, and
   ridicule, and had, notwithstanding his many physical infirmities, an
   astounding power of work. He could express the deepest thought in the
   clearest and strongest language, and had an abundant supply of juicy
   and forcible epithets. [395] His very opponents had to imitate his
   German speech if they wished to reach the masses, and to hit the nail
   on the head. He had a genial heart, but also a most violent temper, and
   used it as a weapon for popular effect. He felt himself called to the
   rough work of "removing stumps and stones, cutting away thistles and
   thorns, and clearing the wild forests." He found aid and comfort in the
   severe language of the prophets. He had, as he says, the threefold
   spirit of Elijah,--the storm, the earthquake, and the fire, which
   subverts mountains and tears the rocks in pieces. He thoroughly
   understood the wants and tastes of his countrymen who preferred force
   to elegance, and the club to the dagger. Foreigners, who knew him only
   from his Latin writings, could not account for his influence.

   Roman historians, in denouncing his polemics, are apt to forget the
   fearful severity of the papal bull, the edict of Worms, and the
   condemnatory decisions of the universities. [396]

   His pen was powerfully aided by the pencil of his friend Lucas Cranach,
   the court-painter of Frederick the Wise.

   Melanchthon had no popular talent, but he employed his scholarly pen in
   a Latin apology for Luther, against the furious decree of the Parisian
   theologasters." [397] The Sorbonne, hitherto the most famous
   theological faculty, which in the days of the reformatory Councils had
   stood up for the cause of reform, followed the example of the
   universities of Louvain and Cologne, and denounced Luther during the
   sessions of the Diet of Worms, April 15, 1521, as an arch-heretic who
   had renewed and intensified the blasphemous errors of the Manichaeans,
   Hussites, Beghards, Cathari, Waldenses, Ebionites, Arians, etc., and
   who should be destroyed by fire rather than refuted by arguments. [398]
   Eck translated the decision at once into German. Melanchthon dared to
   charge the faculty of Paris with apostasy from Christ to Aristotle, and
   from biblical theology to scholastic sophistry. Luther translated the
   Apology into German at the Wartburg, and, finding it too mild, he added
   to it some strokes of his "peasant's axe." [399]

   Ulrich von Hutten was almost equal to Luther in literary power,
   eloquence, wit, and sarcasm, as well as in courage, and aided him with
   all his might from the Ebernburg during his trial at Worms; but he
   weakened his cause by want of principle. He had previously republished
   and ridiculed the Pope's bull of excommunication. He now attacked the
   edict of Worms, and wrote invectives against its authors, the papal
   legates, and its supporters, the bishops. [400] He told the former how
   foolish it was to proceed with such impudence and violence against
   Luther, in opposition to the spirit of the age, that the time of
   revenge would soon come; that the Germans were by no means so blind and
   indifferent as they imagined; that the young Emperor would soon come to
   a better knowledge. He indignantly reminded Aleander of his shameful
   private utterance (which was also reported to Luther by Spalatin),
   that, if the Germans should shake off the papal yoke, Rome would take
   care to sow so much seed of discord among them that they would eat each
   other up. He reproached the archbishops and higher clergy for using
   force instead of persuasion, the secular magistrate instead of the word
   of Christ against Luther. He told them that they were no real priests;
   that they had bought their dignities; that they violated common
   morality; that they were carnal, worldly, avaricious; that they were
   unable or ashamed to preach the gospel which condemned their conduct,
   and that if God raised a preacher like Luther, they sought to oppress
   him. But the measure is full. "Away with you," he exclaims, "ye unclean
   hogs, away from the pure fountains! Away with you, wicked traffickers,
   from the sanctuary! Touch no longer the altars with your profane hands!
   What right have ye to waste the pious benefactions of our fathers in
   luxury, fornication, and vain pomp, while many honest and pious people
   are starving? The measure is full. See ye not that the air of freedom
   is stirring, that men, disgusted with the present state of things,
   demand improvement? Luther and I may perish at your hands, but what of
   that? There are many more Luthers and Huttens who will take revenge,
   and raise a new and more violent reformation."

   He added, however, to the second edition, a sort of apologetic letter
   to Albrecht, the head of the German archbishops, his former friend and
   patron, assuring him of his continued friendship, and expressing regret
   that he should have been alienated from the protection of the cause of
   progress and liberty.

   In a different spirit Hans Sachs, the pious poet-shoemaker of Nürnberg,
   [401] wrote many ephemeral compositions in prose and poetry for the
   cause of Luther and the gospel. He met Luther at Augsburg in 1518,
   collected till 1522 forty books in his favor, and published in 1523 a
   poem of seven hundred verses under the title: "Die Wittenbergisch
   Nachtigall, Die man jetzt hört überall," and with the concluding words:
   "Christus amator, Papa peccator." It was soon followed by four
   polemical dialogues in prose.

   Among the most popular pamphleteers on the Protestant side were a
   farmer named "Karsthans," who labored in the Rhine country between
   Strassburg and Basel, and his imitator, "Neukarsthans." Many pamphlets
   were anonymous or pseudonymous.

   It is a significant fact, that the Reformation was defended by so many
   laymen. All the great German classics who arose in more recent times
   (Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Uhland, Rückert), as
   well as philosophers (Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
   Herbart, Lotze), are Protestants, at least nominally, and could not
   have grown on papal soil.

   The newness and freshness of this fugitive popular literature called
   out by the Reformation, and especially by the edict of Worms, made it
   all the more effective. The people were hungry for intellectual and
   spiritual food, and the appetite grew with the supply.

   The polemical productions of that period are usually brief, pointed,
   and aimed at the common-sense of the masses. They abound in strong
   arguments, rude wit, and coarse abuse. They plead the cause of freedom
   against oppression, of the laity against priestcraft and monkery. A
   favorite form of composition was the dialogue in which a peasant or a
   laboring-man defeats an ecclesiastic.

   The Devil figures prominently in league with the Pope, sometimes as his
   servant, sometimes as his master. Very often the Pope is contrasted
   with Christ as his antipode. The Pope, says one of the
   controversialists, proclaimed the terrible bull of condemnation of
   Luther and all heretics on the day commemorative of the institution of
   the holy communion; and turned the divine mercy into human wrath,
   brotherly love into persecuting hatred, the very blessing into a curse.

   St. Peter also appears often in these productions: he stands at the
   gate of heaven, examining priests, monks, and popes, whether they are
   fit to enter, and decides in most cases against them. Here is a
   specimen: A fat and drunken monk knocks at the gate, and is angry that
   he is not at once admitted; Peter tells him first to get sober, and
   laughs at his foolish dress. Then he catechises him; the monk
   enumerates all his fasts, self-mortifications, and pious exercises;
   Peter orders that his belly be cut open, and, behold! chickens, wild
   game, fish, omelets, wine, and other contents come forth and bear
   witness against the hypocrite, who is forthwith sent to the place of
   punishment.

   The writer of a pamphlet entitled "Doctor Martin Luther's Passion,"
   draws an irreverent parallel between Luther's treatment by the Diet,
   with Christ's crucifixion: Luther's entry into Worms is compared to
   Christ's entry into Jerusalem, the Diet to the Sanhedrin, Archbishop
   Albrecht to Caiaphas, the papal legates to the Pharisees, the Elector
   of Saxony to Peter, Eck and Cochlaeus to the false witnesses, the
   Archbishop of Treves to Pilate, the German nation to Pilate's wife; at
   last Luther's books and likeness are thrown into the fire, but his
   likeness will not burn, and the spectators exclaim, "Verily, he is a
   Christian."

   The same warfare was going on in German Switzerland. Nicolas Manuel, a
   poet and painter (died 1530), in a carnival play which was enacted at
   Berne, 1522, introduces first the whole hierarchy, confessing one after
   another their sins, and expressing regret that they now are to be
   stopped by the rising opposition of the people; then the various
   classes of laymen attack the priests, expose their vices, and refute
   their sophistries; and at last Peter and Paul decide in favor of the
   laity, and charge the clergy with flatly contradicting the teaching of
   Christ and the Apostles. [402]

   These pamphlets and fugitive papers were illustrated by rude woodcuts
   and caricatures of obnoxious persons, which added much to their popular
   effect. Popes, cardinals, and bishops are represented in their clerical
   costume, but with faces of wolves or foxes, and surrounded by geese
   praying a Paternoster or Ave Maria. The "Passion of Christ and
   Antichrist" has twenty-six woodcuts, from the elder Lucas Cranach or
   his school, which exhibit the contrast between Christ and his pretended
   vicar in parallel pictures: in one Christ declines the crown of this
   world, in the other the Pope refuses to open the gate to the Emperor
   (at Canossa); in one Christ wears the crown of thorns, in the other the
   Pope the triple crown of gold and jewels; in one Christ washes the feet
   of his disciples, in the other the Pope suffers emperors and kings to
   kiss his toe; in one Christ preaches the glad tidings to the poor, in
   the other the Pope feasts with his cardinals at a rich banquet; in one
   Christ expels the profane traffickers, in the other the Pope sits in
   the temple of God; in one Christ rides meekly on an ass into Jerusalem,
   in the other the Pope and his cardinals ride on fiery steeds into hell.
   [403]

   The controversial literature of the Roman-Catholic Church was far
   behind the Protestant in ability and fertility. The most popular and
   effective writer on the Roman side was the Franciscan monk and crowned
   poet, Thomas Murner. He was an Alsatian, and lived in Strassburg,
   afterwards at Luzern, and died at Heidelberg (1537). He had formerly,
   in his Narrenbeschwörung (1512) and other writings, unmercifully
   chastised the vices of all classes, including clergy and monks, and had
   sided with Reuchlin in his controversy with the Dominicans, but in 1520
   he turned against Luther, and assailed his cause in a poetical satire:
   "Vom grossen lutherischen Narren wie ihn Doctor Murner beschworen hat,
   1522." [404]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [395] Kraftwörter, as the Germans call them.

   [396] Janssen says (II. 181 and 193): "Den Ton für die ganze damalige
   polemische Literatur gabLuther an, wie durch seine früheren Schriften,
   so auch durch die neuen, welche er von der Wartburg aus in die Welt
   schickte." Then he quotes a number of the coarsest outbursts of
   Luther's wrath, and his disparaging remarks on some books of the New
   Testament (the Eusebian Antilegomena), all of which, however, are
   disowned by the Lutheran Church, and more than counterbalanced by his
   profound reverence for, and submission to, the undoubted writings (the
   Homologumena). See § 6, pp. 16 sqq.

   [397] "Adversus furiosum Parisiensium theologastrorum Decretum pro
   Luthero Apologia," 1521. In the "Corpus Reformat.," vol. I. 398-416. A
   copy of the original edition is in the Royal Library at Berlin. An
   extract, in Carl Schmidt's Philipp Melanchthon, pp. 55 sqq.

   [398] Determinatio Theologorum Parisiensium super Doctrina Lutheriana.
   "Corp. Reform." I. 366-388.

   [399] "Mein lieber Philipp," he says, "hat ihnen [den groben Pariser
   Eseln] wohl meisterlich geantwortet, hat sie aber doch zu sanft
   angerührt und mit dem leichten Hobel überlaufen; ich sehe wohl, ich
   muss mit der Bauernaxt über die groben Blöcke kommen." At the same time
   there appeared an anonymous satire against the Paris theologians, in
   the style of the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum. See Schmidt, l.c. p. 58.

   [400] In Hieron. Aleandrum, et Marinum Caracciolum Oratores Leonis X.
   apud Vormaciam Invectivae singulae.--In Cardinales, episcopos et
   Sacerdotes, Lutherum Vormaciae oppugnantes, Invectiva.--Ad Carolum Imp.
   pro Luthero exhortatoria. See Strauss, Ulrich v. Hutten, pp. 397 sqq.

   [401] Characteristic for his poetry is the well-known rhyme (which is,
   however, not found in his works):-- "Hans Sachs war ein Schuh- Macher
   und Poet dazu." A new edition of his poems appeared at Stuttgart, 1870
   sqq. He figures prominently in Kaulbach's picture of the Reformation.

   [402] See Grüneisen's Nicolaus Manuels Leben und Werke (1837), pp.
   339-392.

   [403] Passional Christi und Antichristi, mit Luther's Nachrede, 1521,
   in the Frkf. ed., LXIII., 240-248. Luther accompanied the pictures with
   texts.

   [404] Newly edited by H. Kurz, Zürich, 1848. Janssen makes much use of
   this poem (II. 123-128, 190, 415, 416). Murner thus describes the
   Protestant attack on the sacraments:-- "Die Mess, die sol nim gelten Im
   Leben noch im Tod. Die Sacrament sie schelten, Die seien uns nit Not.
   Fünf hont sie gar vernichtet, Die andern lon sie ston, Dermassen
   zugerichtet, Dass sie auch bald zergon." Of Luther's doctrine of the
   general priesthood of the laity he says:-- "Wir sein all Pfaffen
   worden, Beid Weiber und die Man, Wiewol wir hant kein Orden Kein Weihe
   gnomen an"
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

   CHAPTER IV.

   THE GERMAN REFORMATION FROM THE DIET OF WORMS

   TO THE PEASANTS' WAR, a.d. 1521-1525.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 60. A New Phase in the History of the Reformation.

   At Worms, Luther stood on the height of his protest against Rome. The
   negative part of his work was completed: the tyranny of popery over
   Western Christendom was broken, the conscience was set free, and the
   way opened for a reconstruction of the Church on the basis of the New
   Testament. What he wrote afterwards against Rome was merely a
   repetition and re-affirmation.

   On his return to Wittenberg, he had a more difficult task before him:
   to effect a positive reformation of faith and discipline, worship and
   ceremonies. A revolution is merely destructive and emancipative: a
   reformation is constructive and affirmative; it removes abuses and
   corruptions, but saves the foundation, and builds on it a new
   structure.

   In this home-work Luther was as conservative and churchly as he had
   been radical and unchurchly in his war against the foreign foe. The
   connecting link between the two periods was his faith in Christ and the
   ever-living word of God, with which he began and ended his public
   labors.

   He now raised his protest against the abuse of liberty in his own camp.
   A sifting process was necessary. Division and confusion broke out among
   his friends and followers. Many of them exceeded all bounds of wisdom
   and moderation; while others, frightened by the excesses, returned to
   the fold of the mother Church. The German nation itself was split on
   the question of the old or new religion, and remains, ecclesiastically,
   divided to this day; but the political unification and reconstruction
   of the German Empire with a Protestant head, instead of the former
   Roman-Catholic emperor, may be regarded as a remote result of the
   Reformation, without which it could never have taken place. And it is a
   remarkable providence, that this great event of 1870 was preceded by
   the Vatican Council and the decree of papal infallibility, and followed
   by the overthrow of the temporal power of the Pope and the political
   unification of Italy with Rome as the capital.

   Before Luther entered upon the new phase in his career, he had a short
   rest on what he called his "Patmos" (Rev. 1:9), and his "wilderness."
   It is the most romantic, as his stand at Worms is the most heroic,
   chapter in his eventful life.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 61. Luther at the Wartburg. 1521-1522.

   I. Luther's Letters, from April 28, 1521, to March 7, 1522, in De
   Wette, vol. I. 5; II. 1-141. Very full and very characteristic. Walch,
   XV. 2324-2402.

   II. C. Köhler: Luther auf der Wartburg. Eisenach, 1798. A. Witzschell:
   Luthers Aufenthalt auf der Wartburg. Wien, 1876. J. G. Morris: Luther
   at Wartburg and Coburg. Philadelphia, 1882.

   III. Marheineke, Chap. X. (I. 276 sqq.). Merle D'Aubigné, bk. IX., chs.
   I. and II. Hagenbach, III. 105 sqq. Fisher, p. 112. Köstlin, I.
   468-535.

   Luther left Worms after a stay of ten days, April 26, 1521, at ten
   o'clock in the morning, quietly, in the same company with which he had
   made his entrance under the greatest popular commotion and expectation.
   His friend Schurf went along. The imperial herald joined him at
   Oppenheim so as not to attract notice.

   In a letter to his friend Cranach, dated Frankfurt, April 28, he thus
   summarizes the proceedings of the Diet: "Have you written these books?
   Yes. Will you recant? No. Then get thee hence! O we blind Germans, how
   childish we are to allow ourselves to be so miserably fooled by the
   Romanists!" [405] In the same letter he takes leave of his Wittenberg
   friends, and intimates that he would be hidden for a while, though he
   did not know where. He says that he would rather have suffered death
   from the tyrants, especially "the furious Duke George," but he could
   not despise the counsel of good people. "A little while, and ye behold
   me no more; and again a little while, and ye shall see me (John 16:16).
   I hope it will be so with me. But God's will, the best of all, be done
   in heaven and on earth."

   At Friedberg he dismissed the herald, and gave him a Latin letter to
   the Emperor, and a German letter of the same import to the Estates. He
   thanked the former for the safe-conduct, and defended his course at
   Worms. He could not trust in the decision of one man or many men when
   God's word and eternal interests were at stake, but was still willing
   to recant if refuted from the Scriptures. [406]

   At Hersfeld he was hospitably entertained in the Benedictine convent by
   the Abbot Crato, and urged to preach. He did so in spite of the
   Emperor's prohibition, obeying God rather than men. "I never
   consented," he says, "to tie up God's word. This is a condition beyond
   my power." [407] He preached also at Eisenach, but under protest of the
   priest in charge of the parish. Several of his companions parted from
   him there, and proceeded in the direction of Gotha and Wittenberg.

   From Eisenach he started with Amsdorf and Petzensteiner for Möhra to
   see his relations. He spent a night with his uncle Heinz, and preached
   on the next Sunday morning. He resumed his journey towards Altenstein
   and Waltershausen, accompanied by some of his relatives. On the 4th of
   May, a company of armed horsemen suddenly appeared from the woods,
   stopped his carriage, amidst cursing and swearing, pulled him out, put
   him on horseback, hurried away with him in full speed, and brought him
   about midnight to the Wartburg, where he was to be detained as a noble
   prisoner of state in charge of Captain von Berlepsch, the governor of
   the castle.

   The scheme had been wisely arranged in Worms by the Elector Frederick,
   whom Aleander calls "the fox of Saxony." He wavered between attachment
   to the old faith and inclination to the new. He could not be sure of
   Luther's safety beyond the term of three weeks when the Emperor's
   safe-conduct expired; he did not wish to disobey the Emperor, nor, on
   the other hand, to sacrifice the reformer, his own subject, and the
   pride of his university. He therefore deemed it best to withdraw him
   for a season from the public eye. Melanchthon characterizes him truly
   when he says of Frederick: "He was not one of those who would stifle
   changes in their very birth. He was subject to the will of God. He read
   the writings which were put forth, and would not permit any power to
   crush what he believed to be true."

   The secret was strictly kept. For several months even John, the
   Elector's brother, did not know Luther's abode, and thought that he was
   in one of Sickingen's castles. Conflicting rumors went abroad, and
   found credence among the crowds who gathered in public places to hear
   the latest news. Some said, He is dead; others, He is imprisoned, and
   cruelly treated. Albrecht Dürer, the famous painter, who was at that
   time at Antwerp, and esteemed Luther as "a man enlightened by the Holy
   Spirit and a confessor of the true Christian faith," entered in his
   diary on Pentecost, 1521, the prayer that God may raise up another man
   in his place, and fill him with the Holy Spirit to heal the wounds of
   the Church.

   The Wartburg is a stately castle on a hill above Eisenach, in the
   finest part of the Thuringian forest. It combines reminiscences of
   mediaeval poetry and piety with those of the Reformation. It was the
   residence of the Landgraves of Thuringia from 1073 to 1440. There the
   most famous Minnesängers, Walther von der Vogelweide, and Wolfram von
   Eschenbach, graced the court of Hermann I. (1190-1217); there St.
   Elizabeth (1207-1231), wife of Landgrave Ludwig, developed her
   extraordinary virtues of humility and charity, and began those ascetic
   self-mortifications which her heartless and barbarous confessor, Conrad
   of Marburg, imposed upon her. But the most interesting relics of the
   past are the Lutherstube and the adjoining Reformationszimmer. The
   plain furniture of the small room which the Reformer occupied, is still
   preserved: a table, a chair, a bedstead, a small bookcase, a
   drinking-tankard, and the knightly armor of Junker Georg, his assumed
   name. The famous ink-spot is seen no more, and the story is not
   authentic. [408] In the Wartburg the German students celebrated, in
   October, 1817, the third jubilee of the Reformation; in the Wartburg
   Dr. Merle D'Aubigné of Geneva received the inspiration for his eloquent
   history of the Reformation, which had a wider circulation, at least in
   the English translation, than any other book on church history; in the
   Wartburg the Eisenach Conference of the various Lutheran
   church-governments of Germany inaugurates its periodical sessions for
   the consultative discussion of matters of common interest, as the
   revision of the Luther-Bible. The castle was handsomely restored and
   decorated in mediaeval style, in 1847.

   Luther's sojourn in this romantic solitude extended through nearly
   eleven months, and alternated between recreation and work, health and
   sickness, high courage and deep despondency. Considering that he there
   translated the New Testament, it was the most useful year of his life.
   He gives a full description of it in letters to his Wittenberg friends,
   especially to Spalatin and Melanchthon, which were transmitted by
   secret messengers, and dated from "Patmos," or "the wilderness," from
   "the region of the air," or "the region of the birds."

   He was known and treated during this episode as Knight George. He
   exchanged the monastic gown for the dress of a gentleman, let his hair
   and beard grow, wore a coat of mail, a sword, and a golden chain, and
   had to imitate courtly manners. He was served by two pages, who brought
   the meals to his room twice a day. His food was much better than be had
   been accustomed to as a monk, and brought on dyspepsia and insomnia. He
   enjoyed the singing of the birds, "sweetly lauding God day and night
   with all their strength." He made excursions with an attendant.
   Sometimes he took a book along, but was reminded that a Knight and a
   scholar were different beings. He engaged in conversation on the way,
   with priests and monks, about ecclesiastical affairs, and the uncertain
   whereabouts of Luther, till he was requested to go on. He took part in
   the chase, but indulged in theological thoughts among the huntsmen and
   animals. "We caught a few hares and partridges," he said, "a worthy
   occupation for idle people." The nets and dogs reminded him of the arts
   of the Devil entangling and pursuing poor human souls. He sheltered a
   hunted hare, but the dogs tore it to pieces; this suggested to him the
   rage of the Devil and the Pope to destroy those whom he wished to
   preserve. It would be better, he thought, to hunt bears and wolves.

   He had many a personal encounter with the Devil, whose existence was as
   certain to him as his own. More than once he threw the inkstand at
   him--not literally, but spiritually. His severest blow at the archfiend
   was the translation of the New Testament. His own doubts, carnal
   temptations, evil thoughts, as well as the dangers threatening him and
   his work from his enemies, projected themselves into apparitions of the
   prince of darkness. He heard his noises at night, in a chest, in a bag
   of nuts, and on the staircase "as if a hundred barrels were rolled from
   top to bottom." Once he saw him in the shape of a big black dog lying
   in his bed; he threw the creature out of the window; but it did not
   bark, and disappeared. [409] Sometimes he resorted to jokes. The Devil,
   he said, will bear any thing better than to be despised and laughed at.
   [410]

   Luther was brought up in all the mediaeval superstitious concerning
   demons, ghosts, witches, and sorcerers. His imagination clothed ideas
   in concrete, massive forms. The Devil was to him the personal
   embodiment of all evil and mischief in the world. Hence he figures very
   largely in his theology and religious experience. [411] He is the
   direct antipode of God, and the archfiend of Christ and of men. As God
   is pure love, so the Devil is pure selfishness, hatred, and envy. He is
   endowed with high intellectual gifts, as bad men often surpass good men
   in prudence and understanding. He was originally an archangel, but
   moved by pride and envy against the Son of God, whose incarnation and
   saving work he foresaw, he rose in rebellion against it. He commands an
   organized army of fallen angels and bad men in constant conflict with
   God and the good angels. He is the god of this world, and knows how to
   rule it. He has power over nature, and can make thunder and lightning,
   hail and earthquake, fleas and bed-bugs. He is the ape of God. He can
   imitate Christ, and is most dangerous in the garb of an angel of light.
   He is most busy where the Word of God is preached. He is proud and
   haughty, although he can appear most humble. He is a liar and a
   murderer from the beginning. He understands a thousand arts. He hates
   men because they are creatures of God. He is everywhere around them,
   and tries to hurt and seduce them. He kindles strife and enmity. He is
   the author of all heresies and persecutions. He invented popery, as a
   counterpart of the true kingdom of God. He inflicts trials, sickness,
   and death upon individuals. He tempts them to break the Ten
   Commandments, to doubt God's word, and to blaspheme. He leads into
   infidelity and despair. He hates matrimony, mirth, and music. He can
   not bear singing, least of all "spiritual songs." [412] He holds the
   human will captive, and rides it as his donkey. He can quote Scripture,
   but only as much of it as suits his purpose. A Christian should know
   that the Devil is nearer him than his coat or shirt, yea, than his own
   skin. Luther reports that he often disputed with the Devil in the
   night, about the state of his soul, so earnestly that he himself
   perspired profusely, and trembled. Once the Devil told him that he was
   a great sinner. "I knew that long ago," replied Luther, "tell me
   something new. Christ has taken my sins upon himself, and forgiven them
   long ago. Now grind your teeth." At other times he returned the charge
   and tauntingly asked him, "Holy Satan, pray for me," or "Physician,
   cure thyself." The Devil assumes visible forms, and appears as a dog or
   a hog or a goat, or as a flame or star, or as a man with horns. He is
   noisy and boisterous. [413] He is at the bottom of all witchcraft and
   ghost-trickery. He steals little children and substitutes others in
   their place, who are mere lumps of flesh and torment the parents, but
   die young. [414] Luther was disposed to trace many mediaeval miracles
   of the Roman Catholic Church to the agency of Satan. He believed in
   daemones incubos et succubos.

   But, after all, the Devil has no real power over believers. He hates
   prayer, and flees from the cross and from the Word of God as from a
   flaming fire. If you cannot expel him by texts of Holy Scripture, the
   best way is to jeer and flout him. A pious nun once scared him away by
   simply saying: "Christiana sum." Christ has slain him, and will cast
   him out at last into the fire of hell. Hence Luther sings in his battle
   hymn, --


   "And let the Prince of ill

   Look grim as e'er he will,

   He harms us not a whit:

   For why? His doom is writ,

   One little word shall slay him."

   Luther was at times deeply dejected in spirit. He wrote to Melanchthon,
   July 13, under the influence of dyspepsia which paints every thing in
   the darkest colors: "You elevate me too high, and fall into the serious
   error of giving me too much credit, as if I were absorbed in God's
   cause. This high opinion of yours confounds and racks me, when I see
   myself insensible, hardened, sunk in idleness, alas! seldom in prayer,
   and not venting one groan over God's Church. My unsubdued flesh burns
   me with devouring fire. In short, I who ought to be eaten up with the
   spirit, am devoured by the flesh, by luxury, indolence, idleness,
   somnolence. Is it that God has turned away from me, because you no
   longer pray for me? You must take my place; you, richer in God's gifts,
   and more acceptable in his sight. Here, a week has passed away since I
   put pen to paper, since I have prayed or studied, either vexed by
   fleshly cares, or by other temptations. If things do not improve, I
   will go to Erfurt without concealment; there you will see me, or I you,
   for I must consult physicians or surgeons. Perhaps the Lord troubles me
   so much in order to draw me from this wilderness before the public."
   [415]

   Notwithstanding his complaints of illness and depression, and assaults
   from the evil spirit, he took the liveliest interest in the events of
   the day, and was anxious to descend to the arena of conflict. He kept
   writing letters, books, and pamphlets, and sent them into the world.
   His literary activity during those few months is truly astounding, and
   contrasts strangely with his repeated lament that he had to sit idle at
   Patmos, and would rather be burned in the service of God than stagnate
   there.

   He had few books in the Wartburg. He studied the Greek and Hebrew
   Scriptures very diligently; [416] he depended for news on the letters
   of his friends at Wittenberg; and for his writings, on the resources of
   his genius.

   He continued his great Latin commentary on the Psalms, dwelling most
   carefully on Psalm 22 with reference to the crucifixion, and wrote
   special expositions of Psalms 68 and 37. He completed his book on the
   Magnificat of the Holy Virgin, in which he still expresses his full
   belief in her sinlessness, even her immaculate conception. He attacked
   auricular confession, which was now used as a potent power against the
   reading of Protestant books, and dedicated the tract to Sickingen (June
   1). He resumed his sermons on the Gospels and Epistles of the church
   year (Kirchenpostille), which were afterwards finished by friends, and
   became one of the most popular books of devotion in Germany. He
   declared it once the best book he ever wrote, one which even the
   Papists liked. [417] He replied in Latin to Latomus, a Louvain
   theologian. He attacked in Latin and German the doctrine of the mass,
   which is the very heart of Roman Catholic worship, and monastic vows,
   the foundation of the monastic system. He dedicated the book against
   vows to his father who had objected to his becoming a monk.

   He also dealt an effectual blow at Cardinal Albrecht of Mainz, who had
   exposed in Halle a collection of nearly nine thousand wondrous relies
   (including the manna in the wilderness, the burning bush of Moses, and
   jars from the wedding at Cana) to the view of pilgrims, with the
   promise of a "surpassing" indulgence for attendance and a charitable
   contribution to the Collegiate Church. Luther disregarded the fact that
   his own pious Elector had arranged a similar exhibition in Wittenberg
   only a few years before, and prepared a fierce protest against the
   "Idol of Indulgences" (October, 1521). Spalatin and the Elector
   protested against the publication, but he wrote to Spalatin: "I will
   not put up with it. I will rather lose you and the prince himself, and
   every living being. If I have stood up against the Pope, why should I
   yield to his creature?" At the same time he addressed a sharp letter to
   the archbishop (Dec. 1), and reminded him that by this time he ought to
   know that indulgences were mere knavery and trickery; that Luther was
   still alive; that bishops, before punishing priests for marrying,
   better first expel their own mistresses. He threatened him with the
   issue of the book against the Idol of Halle. The archbishop submitted,
   and made a humble apology in a letter of Dec. 21, which shows what a
   power Luther had acquired over him. [418]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [405] De Wette, I. 588.

   [406] De Wette, I. 589, 600.

   [407] See his letter to Spalatin, May 14, in De Wette, II. 6.

   [408] On my last visit, July 31, 1886, I saw only scratches and
   disfigurements on the wall where the ink-spot was formerly pointed out.
   "No old reporter," says Köstlin, I. 472 sq., "knows any thing about the
   spot of the inkstand on the wall; the story arose probably from a spot
   of a different sort." Semler saw such an ink-spot at Coburg. The
   legend, however, embodies a true idea.

   [409] In Goethe's Faust, Mephistopheles appears in the disguise of a
   poodle, the canis infernus, and is conjured by the sign of a cross:
   "Bist du, Geselle, Ein Flüchtling der Hölle? So sieh diess Zeichen, Dem
   sie sich beugen Die schwarzen Schaaren."

   [410] "Verachtung kann der stolze hoffährtige Geist nicht
   leiden."Tischreden. (LX. 75. Erl.-Frkf. ed.)

   [411] In the alphabetical index of the Erlangen-Frankfurt edition of
   Luther's German Works, the title Teufel fills no less than ten closely
   printed pages (vol. LXVII. 243-253). His Table-Talk on the Devil
   occupies about 150 pages in vols. LIX. and LX. It is instructive and
   interesting to read it through. Michelet devotes a whole chapter to
   this subject (pp. 219-234). For a systematic view, see Köstlin,
   Luther's Theologie, vol. II. 313 sq.; 351 sqq.

   [412] "Der Teufel ist ein trauriger Geist," he says in his Table-Talk
   (LX. 60), "und macht traurige Leute; darum kann er Fröhlichkeit nicht
   leiden. Daher kommt's auch, dass er von der Musica aufs Weiteste
   fleuget; er bleibt nicht, wenn man singt, sonderlich geistliche Lieder.
   Also linderte David mit seiner Harfen dem Saul seine Anfechtung, da ihn
   der Teufel plagte."

   [413] Ein Polter-und Rumpel-Geist.

   [414] "Solche Wechselbälge [or Wechselkinder, changelings] und
   Kielkröpfe supponit Satan in locum verorum filiorum, und plaget die
   Leute damit. Denn diese Gewalt hat der Satan, dass er die Kinder
   auswechselt und einem für sein Kind einen Teufel in die Wiegen legt."
   Erl. ed., LX. 41.

   [415] De Wette, II. 21 sq.

   [416] "Bibliam Graecam et Hebraicam lego." To Spalatin, May 14 (De
   Wette, II. 6).

   [417] See Preface to the St. Louis ed. of Walch, XI. (1882), p. 1 sqq.,
   and Köstlin, I. 486-489.

   [418] Both letters in Walch, XIX. 656 sqq.; Luther's letter in De
   Wette, II. 112-115. Comp. Köstlin, I. 485 sq. The usual opinion that
   Albrecht revived the traffic in indulgences at Halle seems at least
   doubtful, and is denied by Albrecht Wolters in his Easter Program, Hat
   Cardinal Albrecht von Mainz im J. 1521 den Tetzel'schen Ablasshandel
   erneuert? Bonn, 1877 (pp. 24). He concludes: "Somit war der 'Abgott,'
   welchen Luther bekämpfte, nicht die Erneuerung des Tetzel'schen
   Ablasshandels, sondern die Wiederaufrichtung der in Sachsen theils
   erloschenen, theils erlöschenden alten Ablasslehre, welche der Cardinal
   durch Ausstellung seiner mit Ablass begnadigten Reliquien zur Hebung
   des neuen Stifts und in der Stiftskirche zu Halle im Jahr 1521 versucht
   hat."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 62. Luther's Translation of the Bible.

   I. Dr. Martin Luther's Bibelübersetzung nach der letzten
   Original-Ausgabe, kritisch bearbeitet von H. E. Bindseil und H. A.
   Niemeyer. Halle, 1845-55, in 7 vols. 8°. The N. T. in vols. 6 and 7. A
   critical reprint of the last edition of Luther (1545). Niemeyer died
   after the publication of the first volume. Comp. the Probebibel (the
   revised Luther-Version), Halle, 1883. Luther's Sendbrief vom
   Dolmetschen und Fürbitte der Heiligen (with a letter to Wenceslaus
   Link, Sept. 12, 1530), in Walch, XXI. 310 sqq., and the Erl. Frkf. ed.,
   vol. LXV. 102-123. (Not in De Wette's collection, because of its
   polemical character.) A defense of his version against the attacks of
   the Romanists. Mathesius, in his thirteenth sermon on the Life of
   Luther.

   II. On the merits and history of Luther's version. The best works are
   by Palm (1772). Panzer (Vollständ. Gesch. der deutschen Bibelübers.
   Luthers, Nürnb. 1783, 2d ed. 1791), Weidemann (1834), H. Schott (1835),
   Bindseil (1847), Hopf (1847), Mönckeberg (1855 and 1861), Karl Frommann
   (1862), Dorner (1868), W. Grimm (1874 and l884), Düsterdieck (1882),
   Kleinert (1883), TH. Schott (1883), and the introduction to the
   Probebibel (1883). See Lit. in § 17, p. 103.

   III. On the pre-Lutheran German Bible, and Luther's relation to it. Ed.
   Reuss: Die deutsche Historienbibel vor der Erfindung des Bücherdrucks.
   Jena, 1855. Jos. Kehrein (Rom. Cath.): Zur Geschichte der deutschen
   Bibelübersetzung vor Luther. Stuttgart, 1851. O. F. Fritzsche in
   Herzog, 2d ed., Bd. III. (1876), pp. 543 sqq. Dr. W. Krafft: Die
   deutsche Bibel vor Luther, sein Verhältniss zu derselben und seine
   Verdienste um die deutsche Bibelübersetzung. Bonn, 1883 (25 pages. 4°.)
   Also the recent discussions (1885-1887) of Keller, Haupt, Jostes,
   Rachel, Kawerau, Kolde, K. Müller, on the alleged Waldensian origin of
   the pre-Lutheran German version.

   The richest fruit of Luther's leisure in the Wartburg, and the most
   important and useful work of his whole life, is the translation of the
   New Testament, by which he brought the teaching and example of Christ
   and the Apostles to the mind and heart of the Germans in life-like
   reproduction. It was a republication of the gospel. He made the Bible
   the people's book in church, school, and house. If he had done nothing
   else, he would be one of the greatest benefactors of the
   German-speaking race. [419]

   His version was followed by Protestant versions in other languages,
   especially the French, Dutch, and English. The Bible ceased to be a
   foreign book in a foreign tongue, and became naturalized, and hence far
   more clear and dear to the common people. Hereafter the Reformation
   depended no longer on the works of the Reformers, but on the book of
   God, which everybody could read for himself as his daily guide in
   spiritual life. This inestimable blessing of an open Bible for all,
   without the permission or intervention of pope and priest, marks an
   immense advance in church history, and can never be lost.

   Earlier Versions.

   Luther was not the first, but by far the greatest translator of the
   German Bible, and is as inseparably connected with it as Jerome is with
   the Latin Vulgate. He threw the older translation into the shade and
   out of use, and has not been surpassed or even equaled by a successor.
   There are more accurate versions for scholars (as those of De Wette and
   Weizsäcker), but none that can rival Luther's for popular authority and
   use.

   The civilization of the barbarians in the dark ages began with the
   introduction of Christianity, and the translation of such portions of
   the Scriptures as were needed in public worship.

   The Gothic Bishop Wulfila or Wölflein (i.e., Little Wolf) in the fourth
   century translated nearly the whole Bible from the Greek into the
   Gothic dialect. It is the earliest monument of Teutonic literature, and
   the basis of comparative Teutonic philology. [420]

   During the fourteenth century some unknown scholars prepared a new
   translation of the whole Bible into the Middle High German dialect. It
   slavishly follows the Latin Vulgate. It may be compared to Wiclif's
   English Version (1380), which was likewise made from the Vulgate, the
   original languages being then almost unknown in Europe. A copy of the
   New Testament of this version has been recently published, from a
   manuscript in the Premonstratensian convent of Tepl in Bohemia. [421]
   Another copy is preserved in the college library at Freiberg in Saxony.
   [422] Both are from the fourteenth century, and agree almost word for
   word with the first printed German Bible, but contain, besides the New
   Testament, the apocryphal letter of St. Paul to the Laodiceans, which
   is a worthless compilation of a few sentences from the genuine writings
   of the apostle. [423]

   After the invention of the printing-press, and before the Reformation,
   this mediaeval German Bible was more frequently printed than any other
   except the Latin Vulgate. [424] No less than seventeen or eighteen
   editions appeared between 1462 and 1522, at Strassburg, Augsburg,
   Nürnberg, Cöln, Lübeck, and Halberstadt (fourteen in the High, three or
   four in the Low German dialect). Most of them are in large folio, in
   two volumes, and illustrated by wood-cuts. The editions present one and
   the same version (or rather two versions,--one High German, the other
   Low German) with dialectical alterations and accommodations to the
   textual variations of the MSS. of the Vulgate, which was in a very
   unsettled condition before the Clementine recension (1592). The
   revisers are as unknown as the translators.

   The spread of this version, imperfect as it was, proves the hunger and
   thirst of the German people for the pure word of God, and prepared the
   way for the Reformation. It alarmed the hierarchy. Archbishop Berthold
   of Mainz, otherwise a learned and enlightened prelate, issued, Jan. 4,
   1486, a prohibition of all unauthorized printing of sacred and learned
   books, especially the German Bible, within his diocese, giving as a
   reason that the German language was incapable of correctly rendering
   the profound sense of Greek and Latin works, and that laymen and women
   could not understand the Bible. Even Geiler of Kaisersberg, who sharply
   criticised the follies of the world and abuses of the Church, thought
   it "an evil thing to print the Bible in German."

   Besides the whole Bible, there were numerous German editions of the
   Gospels and Epistles (Plenaria), and the Psalter, all made from the
   Vulgate. [425]

   Luther could not be ignorant of this mediaeval version. He made
   judicious use of it, as he did also of old German and Latin hymns.
   Without such aid he could hardly have finished his New Testament in the
   short space of three months. [426] But this fact does not diminish his
   merit in the least; for his version was made from the original Hebrew
   and Greek, and was so far superior in every respect that the older
   version entirely disappeared. It is to all intents a new work.

   Luther's Qualifications.

   Luther had a rare combination of gifts for a Bible translator:
   familiarity with the original languages, perfect mastery over the
   vernacular, faith in the revealed word of God, enthusiasm for the
   gospel, unction of the Holy Spirit. A good translation must be both
   true and free, faithful and idiomatic, so as to read like an original
   work. This is the case with Luther's version. Besides, he had already
   acquired such fame and authority that his version at once commanded
   universal attention.

   His knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was only moderate, but sufficient to
   enable him to form an independent judgment. [427] What he lacked in
   scholarship was supplied by his intuitive genius and the help of
   Melanchthon. In the German tongue he had no rival. He created, as it
   were, or gave shape and form to the modern High German. He combined the
   official language of the government with that of the common people. He
   listened, as he says, to the speech of the mother at home, the children
   in the street, the men and women in the market, the butcher and various
   tradesmen in their shops, and, "looked them on the mouth," in pursuit
   of the most intelligible terms. His genius for poetry and music enabled
   him to reproduce the rhythm and melody, the parallelism and symmetry,
   of Hebrew poetry and prose. His crowning qualification was his
   intuitive insight and spiritual sympathy with the contents of the
   Bible.

   A good translation, he says, requires "a truly devout, faithful,
   diligent, Christian, learned, experienced, and practiced heart."

   Progress of his Version.

   Luther was gradually prepared for this work. He found for the first
   time a complete copy of the Latin Bible in the University Library at
   Erfurt, to his great delight, and made it his chief study. He derived
   from it his theology and spiritual nourishment; he lectured and
   preached on it as professor at Wittenberg day after day. He acquired
   the knowledge of the original languages for the purpose of its better
   understanding. He liked to call himself a "Doctor of the Sacred
   Scriptures."

   He made his first attempt as translator with the seven Penitential
   Psalms, which he published in March, 1517, six months before the
   outbreak of the Reformation. Then followed several other sections of
   the Old and New Testaments,--the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer,
   the Prayer of King Manasseh, the Magnificat of the Virgin Mary, etc.,
   with popular comments. He was urged by his friends, especially by
   Melanchthon, as well as by his own sense of duty, to translate the
   whole Bible.

   He began with the New Testament in November or December, 1521, and
   completed it in the following March, before he left the Wartburg. He
   thoroughly revised it on his return to Wittenberg, with the effectual
   help of Melanchthon, who was a much better Greek scholar. Sturz at
   Erfurt was consulted about coins and measures; Spalatin furnished from
   the Electoral treasury names for the precious stones of the New
   Jerusalem (Rev. 21). The translation was then hurried through three
   presses, and appeared already Sept. 21, 1522, but without his name.
   [428]

   In December a second edition was required, which contained many
   corrections and improvements. [429]

   He at once proceeded to the more difficult task of translating the Old
   Testament, and published it in parts as they were ready. The Pentateuch
   appeared in 1523; the Psalter, 1524.

   In the progress of the work he founded a Collegium Biblieum, or Bible
   club, consisting of his colleagues Melanchthon, Bugenhagen (Pommer),
   Cruciger, Justus Jonas, and Aurogallus. They met once a week in his
   house, several hours before supper. Deacon Georg Rörer (Rorarius), the
   first clergyman ordained by Luther, and his proof-reader, was also
   present; occasionally foreign scholars were admitted; and Jewish rabbis
   were freely consulted. Each member of the company contributed to the
   work from his special knowledge and preparation. Melanchthon brought
   with him the Greek Bible, Cruciger the Hebrew and Chaldee, Bugenhagen
   the Vulgate, others the old commentators; Luther had always with him
   the Latin and the German versions besides the Hebrew. Sometimes they
   scarcely mastered three lines of the Book of Job in four days, and
   hunted two, three, and four weeks for a single word. No record exists
   of the discussions of this remarkable company, but Mathesius says that
   "wonderfully beautiful and instructive speeches were made."

   At last the whole Bible, including the Apocrypha as "books not equal to
   the Holy Scriptures, yet useful and good to read," was completed in
   1534, and printed with numerous woodcuts.

   In the mean time the New Testament had appeared in sixteen or seventeen
   editions, and in over fifty reprints. [430]

   Luther complained of the many errors in these irresponsible editions.

   He never ceased to amend his translation. Besides correcting errors, he
   improved the uncouth and confused orthography, fixed the inflections,
   purged the vocabulary of obscure and ignoble words, and made the whole
   more symmetrical and melodious.

   He prepared five original editions, or recensions, of his whole Bible,
   the last in 1545, a year before his death. [431] This is the proper
   basis of all critical editions. [432]

   The edition of 1546 was prepared by his friend Rörer, and contains a
   large number of alterations, which he traced to Luther himself. Some of
   them are real improvements, e.g., "Die Liebe höret nimmer auf," for,
   "Die Liebe wird nicht müde" (1 Cor. 13:8). The charge that he made the
   changes in the interest of Philippism (Melanchthonianism), seems to be
   unfounded.

   Editions and Revisions.

   The printed Bible text of Luther had the same fate as the written text
   of the old Itala and Jerome's Vulgate. It passed through innumerable
   improvements and mis-improvements. The orthography and inflections were
   modernized, obsolete words removed, the versicular division introduced
   (first in a Heidelberg reprint, 1568), the spurious clause of the three
   witnesses inserted in 1 John 5:7 (first by a Frankfurt publisher,
   1574), the third and fourth books of Ezra and the third book of the
   Maccabees added to the Apocrypha, and various other changes effected,
   necessary and unnecessary, good and bad. Elector August of Saxony tried
   to control the text in the interest of strict Lutheran orthodoxy, and
   ordered the preparation of a standard edition (1581). But it was
   disregarded outside of Saxony.

   Gradually no less than eleven or twelve recensions came into use, some
   based on the edition of 1545, others on that of 1546. The most careful
   recension was that of the Canstein Bible Institute, founded by a pious
   nobleman, Carl Hildebrand von Canstein (1667-1719) in connection with
   Francke's Orphan House at Halle. It acquired the largest circulation
   and became the textus receptus of the German Bible.

   With the immense progress of biblical learning in the present century,
   the desire for a timely revision of Luther's version was more and more
   felt. Revised versions with many improvements were prepared by Joh.-
   Friedrich von Meyer, a Frankfurt patrician (1772-1849), and Dr. Rudolf
   Stier (18001862), but did not obtain public authority.

   At last a conservative official revision of the Luther Bible was
   inaugurated by the combined German church governments in 1863, with a
   view and fair prospect of superseding all former editions in public
   use. [433]

   The Success.

   The German Bible of Luther was saluted with the greatest enthusiasm,
   and became the most powerful help to the Reformation. Duke George of
   Saxony, Duke William of Bavaria, and Archduke Ferdinand of Austria
   strictly prohibited the sale in their dominions, but could not stay the
   current. Hans Lufft at Wittenberg printed and sold in forty years
   (between 1534 and 1574) about a hundred thousand copies,--an enormous
   number for that age,--and these were read by millions. The number of
   copies from reprints is beyond estimate.

   Cochlaeus, the champion of Romanism, paid the translation the greatest
   compliment when he complained that "Luther's New Testament was so much
   multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers,
   yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran
   gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest
   avidity as the fountain of all truth. Some committed it to memory, and
   carried it about in their bosom. In a few months such people deemed
   themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith
   and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and
   monks and doctors of divinity." [434]

   The Romanists were forced in self-defense to issue rival translations.
   Such were made by Emser (1527), Dietenberger (1534), and Eck (1537),
   and accompanied with annotations. They are more correct in a number of
   passages, but slavishly conformed to the Vulgate, stiff and heavy, and
   they frequently copy the very language of Luther, so that he could say
   with truth, "The Papists steal my German of which they knew little
   before, and they do not thank me for it, but rather use it against me."
   These versions have long since gone out of use even in the Roman
   Church, while Luther's still lives. [435]

   NOTE.

   the pre-lutheran german bible.

   According to the latest investigations, fourteen printed editions of
   the whole Bible in the Middle High German dialect, and three in the Low
   German, have been identified. Panzer already knew fourteen; see his
   Gesch. der nürnbergischen Ausgaben der Bibel, Nürnberg, 1778, p. 74.

   The first four, in large folio, appeared without date and place of
   publication, but were probably printed: 1, at Strassburg, by Heinrich
   Eggestein, about or before 1466 (the falsely so-called Mainzer Bibel of
   1462); 2, at Strassburg, by Johann Mentelin, 1466 (?); 3, at Augsburg,
   by Jodocus Pflanzmann, or Tyner, 1470 (?); 4, at Nürnberg, by
   Sensenschmidt and Frissner, in 2 vols., 408 and 104 leaves, 1470-73
   (?). The others are located, and from the seventh on also dated, viz.:
   5, Augsburg, by Günther Zainer, 2 vols., probably between 1473-1475. 6,
   Augsburg, by the same, dated 1477 (Stevens says, 1475?). 7, The third
   Augsburg edition, by Günther Zainer, or Anton Sorg, 1477, 2 vols., 321
   and 332 leaves, fol., printed in double columns; the first German Bible
   with a date. 8, The fourth Augsburg edition, by A. Sorg, 1480, folio.
   9, Nürnberg, by Anton Koburger (also spelled Koberger), 1483. 10,
   Strassburg, by Johann Gruninger, 1485. 11 and 12, The fifth and sixth
   Augsburg editions, in small fol., by Hans Schönsperger, 1487 and 1490.
   13, The seventh Augsburg edition, by Hans Otmar, 1507, small folio. 14,
   The eighth Augsburg edition, by Silvan Otmar, 1518, small folio.

   The Low Dutch Bibles were printed: 1, at Cologne, in large folio,
   double columns, probably 1480. The unknown editor speaks of previous
   editions and his own improvements. Stevens (Nos. 653 and 654) mentions
   two copies of the O. T. in Dutch, printed at Delf, 1477, 2 vols. fol.
   2, At Lübeck, 1491 (not 1494), 2 vols. fol. with large woodcuts. 3, At
   Halberstadt, 1522.

   Comp. Kehrein (I.c.), Krafft (l.c., pp. 4, 5), and Henry Stevens, The
   Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition, London, 1878. Stevens gives the full
   titles with descriptions, pp. 45 sqq., nos. 620 sqq.

   Several of these Bibles, including the Koburger and those of Cologne
   and Halberstadt, are in the possession of the Union Theol. Seminary,
   New York. I examined them. They are ornamented by woodcuts, beginning
   with a picture of God creating the world, and forming Eve from the rib
   of Adam in Paradise. Several of them have Jerome's preface (De omnibus
   divinae historiae libris, Ep. ad Paulinum), the oldest with the remark:
   "Da hebet an die epistel des heiligen priesters sant Jeronimi zu
   Paulinum von allen gottlichen büchern der hystory. Das erst capitel."

   Dr. Krafft illustrates the dependence of Luther on the earlier version
   by several examples (pp. 13-18). The following is from the Sermon on
   the Mount, Matt. 5:21-27:--

   the ninth bible, 1483.

   Habt ir gehört, das gesaget ist den alten. Du solt nit tödten,
   wellicher aber tödtet. der wird schuldig des gerichts. Aber ich sag
   euch, daz ein yeglicher der do zürnet seinem bruder. der wirt schuldig
   des gerichts. Der aber spricht zu seinem bruder. racha. der wirt
   schuldig des rats. Und der do spricht. tor. der wirt schuldig des
   hellischen fewrs. Darum ob du opfferst dein gab zu dem attar. und do
   wirst gedenckend. daz dein bruder ettwas hat wider dich, lasz do dein
   gab vor dem altar und gee zum ersten und versüne dich mit deim bruder
   und denn kum und opffer dein gab. Bis gehellig deim widerwertigen
   schyer. die weyl du mit im bist him weg. das dich villeycht der
   widersacher nit antwurt den Richter. und der Richter dich antwurt dem
   diener und werdest gelegt in den kercker. Fürwar ich sag dir. du geest
   nit aus von dannen. und das du vergeltest den letzten quadranten.

   luther's new testament, 1522.

   Ihr habt gehortt, das zu den alten gesagt ist, du sollt nit todten, wer
   aber todtet, der soll des gerichts schuldig seyn. Ich aber sage euch,
   wer mit seynem bruder zurnit, der ist des gerichts schuldig, wer aber
   zu seynem bruder sagt, Racha, der ist des rads schuldig, wer aber sagt,
   du narr, der ist des hellischen fewers schuldig.

   Darumbwen? du deyn gabe auff den altar opfferst, un wirst alda
   eyngedenken, das deyn bruder ettwas widder dich hab, so las alda fur
   dem altar deyn gabe, unnd gehe zuvor hyn, unnd versune dich mitt deynem
   bruder, unnd als denn kom unnd opffer deyn gabe.

   Sey willfertig deynem widersacher, bald, dieweyl du noch mit yhm auff
   dem wege bist, auff das dich der widdersacher nit der mal eyns
   ubirantwortte dem richter, un? d. richter ubirantworte dich dem diener,
   un? werdist yn? den kerccker geworffen, warlich ich sage dyr, du wirst
   nit von dannen erauze komen, bis du auch den letzten heller bezealest.

   To this I add two specimens in which the superiority of Luther's
   version is more apparent.

   Gen. 1:1-3.

   the koburger bible of nürnberg, 1483

   In dem anfang hat got beschaffen hymel und erden. aber dye erde was
   eytel und leere. und die vinsternus warn auff dem antlitz des abgrunds.
   vnd der geist gots swebet oder ward getragen auff den wassern. Un? got
   der sprach. Es werde dz liecht. Un das liecht ist worden.

   luther's bible, ed. 1535.

   Im anfang schuff Gott himel und erden. Und die erde war wüst und leer,
   und es war finster auff der tieffe, und der Geist Gottes schwebet auff
   dem wasser.

   Un Gott sprach. Es werde liecht. Und es ward liecht.

   1 Cor. 13:1, 2.

   The Strassburg Bible Of 1485.

   Ob ich rede inn der zungen der engel vnd der menschen; aber habe ich
   der lieb nit, ich bin gemacht alls ein glockenspeyss lautend oder alls
   ein schell klingend. Vnd ob ich hab die weissagung und erkenn all
   heimlichkeit vnd alle kunst, und ob ich hab alten glauben, also das ich
   übertrag die berg, habe ich aber der lieb nit, ich bin nichts.

   Luther's New Testament, 1522.

   Wenn ich mit menschen und mit engelzungen redet und hette die [436]
   liebe nit, [437] so wäre ich ein tönend ertz oder ein klingende schell.
   [438] Und wenn ich weissagen kündt, vnnd wüste alle geheymnuss vnd alle
   erkantnüss, vnd hette alten glauben, also das ich berg versetzete, und
   hett der liebe nicht, so were ich nichts.

   The precise origin of the mediaeval German Bible is still unknown. Dr.
   Ludwig Keller of Münster first suggested in his Die Reformation und die
   älteren Reformparteien, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 257-260, the hypothesis that
   it was made by Waldenses (who had also a Romanic version); and he tried
   to prove it in his Die Waldenser und die deutschen Bibelübersetzungen,
   Leipzig, 1886 (189 pages). Dr. Hermann Haupt, of Würzburg, took the
   same ground in his Die deutsche Bibelübersetzung der mittelalterlichen
   Waldenser in dem Codex Teplensis und der ersten gedruckten Bibel
   nachgewiesen, Würzburg, 1885 (64 pages); and again, in self-defense
   against Jostes, in Der waldensische Ursprung des Codex Teplensis und
   der vor-lutherischen deutschen Bibeldrucke, Würzburg, 1886. On the
   other hand, Dr. Franz Jostes, a Roman Catholic scholar, denied the
   Waldensian and defended the Catholic origin of that translation, in two
   pamphlets: Die Waldenser und die vorlutherische Bibelübersetzung,
   Münster, 1885 (44 pages), and Die Tepler Bibelübersetzung. Eine zweite
   Kritik, Münster, 1886 (43 pages). The same author promises a complete
   history of German Catholic Bible versions. The question has been
   discussed in periodicals and reviews, e.g., by Kawerau in Luthardt's
   "Theol. Literaturblatt," Leipzig, 1885 and 1886 (Nos. 32-34), by Schaff
   in the New York "Independent" for Oct. 8, 1885, and in the
   "Presbyterian Review" for April, 1887, pp. 355 sqq.; by Kolde, in the
   "Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen," 1887, No. I.; by Müller in the "Studien
   und Kritiken," 1887, No. III.; and Bornemann, in the "Jahrb. f. Prot.
   Theol.," 1888, 67-101.

   The arguments for the Waldensian origin are derived from certain
   additions to the Codex Teplensis, and alleged departures from the text
   of the Vulgate. But the additions are not anti-Catholic, and are not
   found in the cognate Freiberger MS.; and the textual variations can not
   be traced to sectarian bias. The text of the Vulgate was in greater
   confusion in the middle ages than the text of the Itala at the time of
   Jerome, nor was there any authorized text of it before the Clementine
   recension of 1592. The only plausible argument which Dr. Keller brings
   out in his second publication (pp. 80 sqq.) is the fact that Emser, in
   his Annotations to the New Test. (1523), charges Luther with having
   translated the N. T. from a "Wickleffisch oder hussisch exemplar." But
   this refers to copies of the Latin Vulgate; and in the examples quoted
   by Keller, Luther does not agree with the Codex Teplensis.

   The hostility of several Popes and Councils to the circulation of
   vernacular translations of the Bible implies the existence of such
   translations, and could not prevent their publication, as the numerous
   German editions prove. Dutch, French, and Italian versions also
   appeared among the earliest prints. See Stevens, Nos. 687 and 688 (p.
   59 sq.). The Italian edition exhibited in 1877 at London is entitled:
   La Biblia en lingua Volgare (per Nicolo di Mallermi). Venetia: per
   Joan. Rosso Vercellese, 1487, fol. A Spanish Bible by Bonif. Ferrer was
   printed at Valencia, 1478 (see Reuss, Gesch. der heil. Schr. N. T., II.
   207, 5th Ed.).

   The Bible is the common property and most sacred treasure of all
   Christian churches. The art of printing was invented in Catholic times,
   and its history goes hand in hand with the history of the Bible. Henry
   Stevens says (The Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition, p. 25): "The secular
   history of the Holy Scriptures is the sacred history of Printing. The
   Bible was the first book printed, and the Bible is the last book
   printed. Between 1450 and 1877, an interval of four centuries and a
   quarter, the Bible shows the progress and comparative development of
   the art of printing in a manner that no other single book can; and
   Biblical bibliography proves that during the first forty years, at
   least, the Bible exceeded in amount of printing all other books put
   together; nor were its quality, style, and variety a whit behind its
   quantity."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [419] The testimony of the great philosopher Hegel is worth quoting. He
   says in his Philosophie der Geschichte, p. 503: "Luther hat die
   Autorität der Kirche verworfen und an ihre Stelle die Bibel und das
   Zeugniss des menschlichen Geistes gesetzt. Dass nun die Bibel selbst
   die Grundlage der christlichen Kirche geworden ist, ist von der
   grössten Wichtigkeit; jeder soll sich nun selbst daraus belehren, jeder
   sein Gewissen daraus bestimmen können. Diess ist die ungeheure
   Veränderung im Principe: die ganze Tradition und das Gebäude der Kirche
   wird problematisch und das Princip der Autorität der Kirche
   umgestossen. Die Uebersetzung, welche Luther von der Bibel gemacht hat,
   ist von unschätzbarem Werthe für das deutsche Volk gewesen. Dieses hat
   dadurch ein Volksbuch erhalten, wie keine Nation der katholischen Welt
   ein solches hat; sie haben wohl eine Unzahl von Gebetbüchlein, aber
   kein Grundbuch zur Belehrung des Volks. Trotz dem hat man in neueren
   Zeiten Streit deshalb erhoben, ob es zweckmässig sei, dem Volke die
   Bibel indie Hand zu geben; die wenigen Nachtheile, die dieses hat,
   werden doch bei weitem von den ungeheuren Vortheilen überwogen; die
   äusserlichen Geschichten, die dem Herzen und Verstande anstössig sein
   können, weiss der religiöse Sinn sehr wohl zu unterscheiden, und sich
   an das Substantielle haltend überwindet er sie." Froude (Luther, p. 42)
   calls Luther's translation of the Bible "the greatest of all the gifts
   he was able to offer to Germany."

   [420] Hence repeatedly published from the remaining fragmentary MSS. in
   Upsala (Codex Argenteus, so called from its silver binding),
   Wolfenbüttel and Milan, by H. C. von Gabelenz and J. Loebe (1836),
   Massmann (1857), Bernhardt (1875), Stamm (1878), Uppström (1854-1868,
   the most accurate edition), R. Müller and H. Hoeppe (1881), W. W. Skeat
   (1882). Comp. also Jos. Bosworth, The Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels in
   Parallel Columns with the Versions of Wycliffe and Tyndale, London, 2d
   ed., 1874 (with a fac-simile of the Codex Argenteus).

   [421] By P. Philipp Klimesch (librarian of the convent), Der Codex
   Teplensis, enthaltend "Die Schrift des newen Gezeuges." Aelteste
   deutsche Handschrift, welche den im 15 Jahrh. gedruckten deutschen
   Bibeln zu Grunde gelegen. Augsburg and München, 1881-1884, in 3 parts.
   The Codex contains also homilies of St. Augustin and St. Chrysostom,
   and seven articles of faith. The last especially have induced Keller
   and Haupt to assign the translation to Waldensian origin. But these
   Addenda are not uncatholic, and at most would only prove Waldensian or
   Bohemian proprietorship of this particular copy, but not authorship of
   the translation. See Notes below, p. 353.

   [422] See Dr. M. Rachel's Gymnasial program: Ueber die Freiberger
   Bibelhandschrift, nebst Beiträgen zur Gesch. der vorlutherischen
   Bibelübersetzung, Freiberg, 1886 (31 pages).

   [423] This apocryphal Epistle was also included in the Albigensian
   (Romance) version of the 13th century, in a Bohemian version, and in
   the early English Bibles, in two independent translations of the 14th
   or 15th century, but not in Wiclif's Bible. See Forshall and Maddan,
   Wycliffite Versions of the Bible (1850), IV. 438 sq.; Anger, Ueber den
   Laodicenerbrief (Leipzig, 1843); and Lightfoot, Com. on Ep. to the
   Colossians (London, 1875), p. 363 sq. On the other hand, the same
   pseudo-Pauline Epistle appears in many MSS. and early editions of the
   Vulgate, and in the German versions of Eck and Dietenberger. It can
   therefore not be used as an argument for or against the Waldensian
   hypothesis of Keller.

   [424] Ninety-seven editions of the Vulgate were printed between 1450
   and 1500,--28 in Italy (nearly all in Venice), 16 in Germany, 10 in
   Basel, 9 in France. See Fritzsche in Herzogii, vol. VIII. 450.

   [425] In the royal library of Munich there are 21 MSS. of German
   versions of the Gospels and Epistles. The Gospels for the year were
   printed about 25 times before 1518; the Psalter about 13 times before
   1513. See besides the works of Panzer, Kehrein, Keller, Haupt, above
   quoted, Alzog, Die deutschen Plenarien im 15. und zu Anfang des 16.
   Jahrh., Freiburg-i-B., 1874.

   [426] Luther's use of the older German version was formerly ignored or
   denied, but has been proved by Professor Krafft of Bonn (1883). He
   adds, however, very justly (l.c. p. 19): "Es gereicht Luther zum
   grössten Verdienst, dass er auf den griechischen Grundtext
   zurückgegangen, den deutschen Wortschatz zunächst im N. T. wesentlich
   berichtigt, dann aber auch mit seiner Genialität bedeutend vermehrt
   hat." See Notes below, p. 352.

   [427] "Ich kann," he says in his Tischreden, "weder griechisch noch
   ebraeisch, ich will aber dennoch einem Ebraeer und Griechen ziemlich
   begegnen. Aber die Sprachen machen für sich selbst keinen Theologen,
   sondern sind nur eine Hülfe. Denn soll einer von einem Dinge reden, so
   muss er die Sache [Sprache?] zuvor wissen und verstehen." Erl.-Frkf.
   ed., vol. LXII. 313.

   [428] Under the title: Das Newe Testament Deutzsch. Wittemberg. With
   wood-cuts by Lucas Cranach, one at the beginning of each book and
   twenty-one in the Apocalypse. The chapter division of the Latin Bible,
   dating from Hugo a St. Caro, was retained with some paragraph
   divisions; the versicular division was as yet unknown (Robert Stephanus
   first introduced it in his Latin edition, 1548, and in his Greek
   Testament of 1551). The order of the Epistles is changed, and the
   change remained in all subsequent editions. Some parallel passages and
   glosses are added on the margin. It contained many typographical
   errors, a very curious one in Gal. 5:6: "Die Liebe, die durch den
   Glauben thaetig ist," instead of "Der Glaube, der durch die Liebe
   thätig ist." A copy of this rare edition, without the full-page
   Apocalyptic pictures, but with the error just noticed, is in the Union
   Seminary Library, New York. It has the famous preface with the fling at
   the "rechte stroern Epistel" of St. James, which was afterwards omitted
   or modified.

   [429] The woodcuts were also changed. The triple papal crown of the
   Babylonian woman in Rev. 17 gave place to a simple crown.

   [430] Fritzsche (l.c., p. 549): "Vom N. T. sind von 1522-1533 ziemlich
   sicher 16 original Ausgaben nachgewiesen ... Die Nachdrucke belaufen
   sich auf ungefähr 54, wobei Augsburg mit 14, Strassburg mit 13, und
   Basel mit 12 vertreten ist."

   [431] Under the title: Biblia, das ist die gantze Heilige Schrift,
   Deutsch. Auffs neu zugericht. D. Mart. Luther. Wittemberg. Durch Hans
   Lufft, M.D.XLV. fol. with numerous woodcuts. A copy in the Canstein
   Bibelanstalt at Halle. The Union Theol. Seminary in New York has a copy
   of the edition of 1535 which bears this title: Biblia das ist die
   /gantze Heilige /Schrifft Deutsch./ Mart. Luth./ Wittemberg./ Begnadet
   mit Kür-/ furstlicher zu Sachsen /freiheit. /Gedruckt durch Hans
   Lufft./ M. D. XXXV. The margin is ornamented. Then follows the
   imprimatur of the Elector John Frederick of Saxony, a preface of Luther
   to the O. T., and a rude picture of God, the globe and paradise with
   Adam and Eve among trees and animals.

   [432] Republished with the greatest care by Bindseil & Niemeyer. See
   Lit., p. 340.

   [433] See Note at the end of the next section.

   [434] De Actis et Scriptis M. Lutheri ad Ann. 1522. Gieseler (IV. 65
   sq.) quotes the whole passage in Latin.

   [435] The last edition of Dr. Eck's Bible appeared in 1558, at
   Ingolstadt, Bavaria.

   [436] Ed. of 1535: der.

   [437] Ed. of 1535: nicht.

   [438] Later eds.: eine ... schelle.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 63. A Critical Estimate of Luther's Version.

   Luther's version of the Bible is a wonderful monument of genius,
   learning, and piety, and may be regarded in a secondary sense as
   inspired. It was, from beginning to end, a labor of love and
   enthusiasm. While publishers and printers made fortunes, Luther never
   received or asked a copper for this greatest work of his life. [439]

   We must judge it from the times. A German translation from the original
   languages was a work of colossal magnitude if we consider the absence
   of good grammars, dictionaries, and concordances, the crude state of
   Greek and Hebrew scholarship, and of the German language, in the
   sixteenth century. Luther wrote to Amsdorf, Jan. 13, 1522, that he had
   undertaken a task beyond his power, that he now understood why no one
   had attempted it before in his own name, and that he would not venture
   on the Old Testament without the aid of his friends. [440] He felt
   especially how difficult it was to make Job and the Hebrew prophets
   speak in barbarous German. [441] He jocosely remarked that Job would
   have become more impatient at the blunders of his translators than at
   the long speeches of his "miserable comforters."

   As regards the text, it was in an unsettled condition. The science of
   textual criticism was not yet born, and the materials for it were not
   yet collected from the manuscripts, ancient versions, and patristic
   quotations. Luther had to use the first printed editions. He had no
   access to manuscripts, the most important of which were not even
   discovered or made available before the middle of the nineteenth
   century. Biblical geography and archaeology were in their infancy, and
   many names and phrases could not be understood at the time.

   In view of these difficulties we need not be surprised at the large
   number of mistakes, inaccuracies, and inconsistencies in Luther's
   version. They are most numerous in Job and the Prophets, who present,
   even to the advanced Hebrew scholars of our day, many unsolved problems
   of text and rendering. The English Version of 1611 had the great
   advantage of the labors of three generations of translators and
   revisers, and is therefore more accurate, and yet equally idiomatic.

   The Original Text.

   The basis for Luther's version of the Old Testament was the Massoretic
   text as published by Gerson Ben Mosheh at Brescia in 1494. [442] He
   used also the Septuagint, the Vulgate of Jerome [443] (although he
   disliked him exceedingly on account of his monkery), the Latin
   translations of the Dominican Sanctes Pagnini of Lucca (1527), and of
   the Franciscan Sebastian Münster (1534), the "Glossa ordinaria" (a
   favorite exegetical vade-mecum of Walafried Strabo from the ninth
   century), and Nicolaus Lyra (d. 1340), the chief of mediaeval
   commentators, who, besides the Fathers, consulted also the Jewish
   rabbis. [444]

   The basis for the New Testament was the second edition of Erasmus,
   published at Basel in Switzerland in 1519. [445] His first edition of
   the Greek Testament had appeared in 1516, just one year before the
   Reformation. He derived the text from a few mediaeval MSS. [446] The
   second edition, though much more correct than the first ("multo
   diligentius recognitum, emendatum," etc.), is disfigured by a large
   -number of typographical errors. [447] He laid the foundation of the
   Textus Receptus, which was brought into its mature shape by R. Stephen,
   in his "royal edition" of 1550 (the basis of the English Textus
   Receptus), and by the Elzevirs in their editions of 1624 and 1633 (the
   basis of the Continental Textus Receptus), and which maintained the
   supremacy till Lachmann inaugurated the adoption of an older textual
   basis (1831).

   Luther did not slavishly follow the Greek of Erasmus, and in many
   places conformed to the Latin Vulgate, which is based on an older text.
   He also omitted, even in his last edition, the famous interpolation of
   the heavenly witnesses in 1 John 5:7, which Erasmus inserted in his
   third edition (1522) against his better judgment. [448]

   The German Rendering.

   The German language was divided into as many dialects as tribes and
   states, and none served as a bond of literary union. Saxons and
   Bavarians, Hanoverians and Swabians, could scarcely understand each
   other. Each author wrote in the dialect of his district, Zwingli in his
   Schwyzerdütsch. "I have so far read no book or letter," says Luther in
   the preface to his version of the Pentateuch (1523), in which the
   German language is properly handled. Nobody seems to care sufficiently
   for it; and every preacher thinks he has a right to change it at
   pleasure, and to invent new terms." Scholars preferred to write in
   Latin, and when they attempted to use the mother tongue, as Reuchlin
   and Melanchthon did occasionally, they fell far below in ease and
   beauty of expression.

   Luther brought harmony out of this confusion, and made the modern High
   German the common book language. He chose as the basis the Saxon
   dialect, which was used at the Saxon court and in diplomatic
   intercourse between the emperor and the estates, but was bureaucratic,
   stiff, heavy, involved, dragging, and unwieldy. [449] He popularized
   and adapted it to theology and religion. He enriched it with the
   vocabulary of the German mystics, chroniclers, and poets. He gave it
   wings, and made it intelligible to the common people of all parts of
   Germany.

   He adapted the words to the capacity of the Germans, often at the
   expense of accuracy. He cared more for the substance than the form. He
   turned the Hebrew shekel into a Silberling, [450] the Greek drachma and
   Roman denarius into a German Groschen, the quadrans into a Heller, the
   Hebrew measures into Scheffel, Malter, Tonne, Centner, and the Roman
   centurion into a Hauptmann. He substituted even undeutsch (!) for
   barbarian in 1 Cor. 14:11. Still greater liberties he allowed himself
   in the Apocrypha, to make them more easy and pleasant reading. [451] He
   used popular alliterative phrases as Geld und Gut, Land und Leute, Rath
   und That, Stecken und Stab, Dornen und Disteln, matt und müde, gäng und
   gäbe. He avoided foreign terms which rushed in like a flood with the
   revival of learning, especially in proper names (as Melanchthon for
   Schwarzerd, Aurifaber for Goldschmid, Oecolampadius for Hausschein,
   Camerarius for Kammermeister). He enriched the vocabulary with such
   beautiful words as holdselig, Gottseligkeit.

   Erasmus Alber, a contemporary of Luther, called him the German Cicero,
   who not only reformed religion, but also the German language.

   Luther's version is an idiomatic reproduction of the Bible in the very
   spirit of the Bible. It brings out the whole wealth, force, and beauty
   of the German language. It is the first German classic, as King James's
   version is the first English classic. It anticipated the golden age of
   German literature as represented by Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, Goethe,
   Schiller,--all of them Protestants, and more or less indebted to the
   Luther-Bible for their style. The best authority in Teutonic philology
   pronounces his language to be the foundation of the new High German
   dialect on account of its purity and influence, and the Protestant
   dialect on account of its freedom which conquered even Roman Catholic
   authors. [452]

   The Protestant Spirit of Luther's Version.

   Dr. Emser, one of the most learned opponents of the Reformation,
   singled out in Luther's New Testament several hundred linguistic
   blunders and heretical falsifications. [453] Many of them were silently
   corrected in later editions. He published, by order of Duke George of
   Saxony, a new translation (1527) for the purpose of correcting the
   errors of "Luther and other heretics." [454]

   The charge that Luther adapted the translation to his theological
   opinions has become traditional in the Roman Church, and is repeated
   again and again by her controversialists and historians. [455]

   The same objection has been raised against the Authorized English
   Version. [456]

   In both cases, the charge has some foundation, but no more than the
   counter-charge which may be brought against Roman Catholic Versions.

   The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther's version is
   the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch
   den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine
   of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the
   insertion for the sake of clearness. [457] But he thereby brought Paul
   into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by
   works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den
   Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to
   harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the
   Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no
   evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art").

   He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against
   it. His defense is very characteristic. "If your papist," he says,
   [458] "makes much useless fuss about the word sola, allein, tell him at
   once: Doctor Martin Luther will have it so, and says: Papist and donkey
   are one thing; sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. For we do
   not want to be pupils and followers of the Papists, but their masters
   and judges." Then he goes on in the style of foolish boasting against
   the Papists, imitating the language of St. Paul in dealing with his
   Judaizing opponents (2 Cor. 11:22 sqq.): "Are they doctors? so am I.
   Are they learned? so am I. Are they preachers? so am I. Are they
   theologians? so am I. Are they disputators? so am I. Are they
   philosophers? so am I. Are they the writers of books? so am I. And I
   shall further boast: I can expound Psalms and Prophets; which they can
   not. I can translate; which they can not .... Therefore the word allein
   shall remain in my New Testament, and though all pope-donkeys
   (Papstesel) should get furious and foolish, they shall not turn it
   out." [459]

   The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther's New Testament is
   undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and
   less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his
   unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation. [460] It is
   still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline
   Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law
   and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and
   on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the
   abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17). [461] The
   anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost
   traditional in Protestant commentaries.

   On the other hand, the Roman Catholic translators used the same liberty
   of marginal annotations and pictorial illustrations in favor of the
   doctrines and usages of their own church. Emser's New Testament is full
   of anti-Lutheran glosses. In Rom. 3:28, he protests on the margin
   against Luther's allein, and says, "Paul by the words 'without works of
   the law' does not mean that man is saved by faith alone, without good
   works, but only without works of the law, that is, external
   circumcision and other Jewish ceremonies." He therefore confines the
   "law" here to the ritual law, and "works" to Jewish works; while,
   according to the best modern commentators, Paul means the whole law,
   moral as well as ceremonial, and all works commanded by the law. And
   yet even in the same chapter and throughout the whole Epistle to the
   Romans, Emser copies verbatim Luther's version for whole verses and
   sections; and where he departs from his language, it is generally for
   the worse.

   The same may be said of the other two German Catholic Bibles of the age
   of the Reformation. They follow Luther's language very closely within
   the limits of the Vulgate, and yet abuse him in the notes. Dr.
   Dietenberger adds his comments in smaller type after the chapters, and
   agrees with Emser's interpretation of Rom. 3:28. [462] Dr. Eck's German
   Bible has few notes, but a strongly anti-Protestant preface. [463]

   To be just, we must recognize the sectarian imperfections of Bible
   versions, arising partly from defective knowledge, partly from
   ingrained prejudices. A translation is an interpretation. Absolute
   reproduction is impossible in any work. [464] A Jew will give a version
   of the Old Testament differing from that of a Christian, because they
   look upon it in a different light,--the one with his face turned
   backward, the other with his face turned forward. A Jew cannot
   understand the Old Testament till he becomes a Christian, and sees in
   it a prophecy and type of Christianity. No synagogue would use a
   Christian version, nor any church a Jewish version. So also the New
   Testament is rendered differently by scholars of the Greek, Latin, and
   Protestant churches. And even where they agree in words, there is a
   difference in the pervading spirit. They move, as it were, in a
   different atmosphere. A Roman Catholic version must be closely
   conformed to the Latin Vulgate, which the Council of Trent puts on an
   equal footing with the original text. [465] A Protestant version is
   bound only by the original text, and breathes an air of freedom from
   traditional restraint. The Roman Church will never use Luther's Version
   or King James's Version, and could not do so without endangering her
   creed; nor will German Protestants use Emser's and Eck's Versions, or
   English Protestants the Douay Version. The Romanist must become
   evangelical before he can fully apprehend the free spirit of the gospel
   as revealed in the New Testament.

   There is, however, a gradual progress in translation, which goes hand
   in hand with the progress of the understanding of the Bible. Jerome's
   Vulgate is an advance upon the Itala, both in accuracy and Latinity;
   the Protestant Versions of the sixteenth century are an advance upon
   the Vulgate, in spirit and in idiomatic reproduction; the revisions of
   the nineteenth century are an advance upon the versions of the
   sixteenth, in philological and historical accuracy and consistency. A
   future generation will make a still nearer approach to the original
   text in its purity and integrity. If the Holy Spirit of God shall raise
   the Church to a higher plane of faith and love, and melt the
   antagonisms of human creeds into the one creed of Christ, then, and not
   before then, may we expect perfect versions of the oracles of God.

   NOTES.

   the official revision of the luther-bible, and the anglo-

   american revision of the authorized english bible.

   An official revision of Luther's version was inaugurated, after long
   previous agitation and discussion, by the "Eisenach German Evangelical
   Church Conference," in 1863, and published under the title: Die Bibel
   oder die ganze Heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testaments nach der
   deutschen Uebersetzung D. Martin Luthers. Halle (Buchhandlung des
   Waisenhauses), 1883. It is called the Probebibel. The revised New
   Testament had been published several years before, and is printed by
   Dr. O. von Gebhardt together with the Greek text, in his Novum
   Testamentum Graece et Germanice, Leipzig, 1881.

   The revision was prepared with extraordinary care, but in an
   ultra-conservative spirit, by a number of distinguished biblical
   scholars appointed by the ecclesiastical authorities of the German
   governments, eleven for the New Testament (Nitzsch, Twesten, Beyschlag,
   Riehm, Ahlfeld, Brückner, Meyer, Niemann, Fronmüller, Schröder,
   Köstlin), and over twenty for the Old Testament, including some who had
   also served in the New Testament company (Tholuck, Schlottmann, Riehm,
   Dillmann, Kleinert, Delitzsch, Bertheau, Düsterdieck, Kamphausen, Baur
   of Leipzig, Ahlfeld, Thenius, Kübel, Kapff, Schröder, Diestel, Grimm,
   Kühn, Hoffmann, Clausen, Grill). Dorner, Mönckeberg, and Karl Frommann
   took a very active part as counsellors and promoters, the last (an
   eminent Germanist and Luther-scholar, but with strong archaic tastes)
   in the linguistic portion.

   The work was very severely criticised by opposite schools for changing
   too much or too little, and was recommitted by the Eisenach Conference
   of 1886 for final action. The history of this revision is told in the
   preface and Introduction to the Probebibel, and in Grimm's Geschichte
   der luth. Bibelübersetzung, Jena, 1884, pp. 48-76.

   The Anglo-American revision of the Authorized English Version of 1611
   was set in motion by the Convocation of Canterbury, and carried out in
   fifteen years, between 1870 and 1885, by two committees,--one in
   England and one in the United States (each divided into two companies,
   -one for the Old Testament, one for the New, and each consisting of
   scholars of various Protestant denominations). Dr. Dorner, on his visit
   to America in 1873, desired to bring about a regular co-operation of
   the two revision movements, but it was found impracticable, and
   confined to private correspondence.

   The two revisions are similar in spirit and aim; and as far as they run
   parallel, they agree in most of the improvements. Both aim to replace
   the old version in public and private use; but both depend for ultimate
   success on the verdict of the churches for which they were prepared.
   They passed through the same purgatory of hostile criticism both from
   conservative and progressive quarters. They mark a great progress of
   biblical scholarship, and the immense labor bestowed upon them can
   never be lost. The difference of the two arises from the difference of
   the two originals on which they are based, and its relation to the
   community.

   The authorized German and English versions are equally idiomatic,
   classical, and popular; but the German is personal, and inseparable
   from the overawing influence of Luther, which forbids radical changes.
   The English is impersonal, and embodies the labors of three generations
   of biblical scholars from Tyndale to the forty-seven revisers of King
   James,--a circumstance which is favorable to new improvements in the
   same line. In Germany, where theology is cultivated as a science for a
   class, the interest in revision is confined to scholars; and German
   scholars, however independent and bold in theory, are very conservative
   and timid in practical questions. In England and America, where
   theology moves in close contact with the life of the churches, revision
   challenges the attention of the laity which claims the fruits of
   theological progress.

   Hence the Anglo-American revision is much more thorough and complete.
   It embodies the results of the latest critical and exegetical learning.
   It involves a reconstruction of the original text, which the German
   Revision leaves almost untouched, as if all the pains-taking labors of
   critics since the days of Bengel and Griesbach down to Lachmann and
   Tischendorf (not to speak of the equally important labors of English
   scholars from Mill and Bentley to Westcott and Hort) had been in vain.

   As to translation, the English Revision removes not only misleading
   errors, but corrects the far more numerous inaccuracies and
   inconsistencies in the minor details of grammar and vocabulary; while
   the German Revision is confined to the correction of acknowledged
   mistranslations. The German Revision of the New Testament numbers only
   about two hundred changes, the Anglo-American thirty-six thousand. The
   revised German New Testament is widely circulated; but of the
   provisional Probebibel, which embraces both Testaments, only five
   thousand copies were printed and sold by the Canstein Bibelanstalt at
   Halle (as I learned there from Dr. Kramer, July, 1886). Of the revised
   English New Testament, a million copies were ordered from the Oxford
   University Press before publication, and three million copies were sold
   in less than a year (1881). The text was telegraphed from New York to
   Chicago in advance of the arrival of the book. Over thirty reprints
   appeared in the United States. The Revised Old Testament excited less
   interest, but tens of thousands of copies were sold on the day of
   publication (1885), and several American editions were issued. The
   Bible, after all, is the most popular book In the world, and constantly
   increasing in power and influence, especially with the English-speaking
   race. (For particulars on the English Revision, see Schaff's Companion
   to the Greek Testament and the English Version, New York, 3d ed., 1888,
   pp. 404 sqq., and the extensive Revision literature, pp. 371 sqq.)
     __________________________________________________________________

   [439] He could say with perfect truth: "Ich habe meine Ehre nicht
   gemeint, auch keinen Heller dafür genomen, sondern habe es zu Ehren
   gethan den lieben Christen und zu Ehren einem, der droben sitzt."

   [440] "Interim Biblia transferam, quanquam onus susceperim supra vires.
   Video nunc, quid sit interpretari, et cur hactenus a nullo sit
   attentatum, qui proficeretur nomen suum. [This implies his knowledge of
   older German translations which are anonymous.] Vetus Testamentum non
   potero attingere, nisi vobis praesentibus et cooperantibus."

   [441] "Ach Gott! wie ein gross und verdriesslich Werk ist es, die
   hebräischen Schreiber zu zwingen deutsch zu reden; wie sträuben sie
   sich und wollen ihre hebräische Art gar nicht verlassen und dem groben
   Deutschen nachfolgen, gleich als wenn eine Nachtigall ... sollte ihre
   liebliche Melodei verlassen und dem Kukuk nachsingen." Walch, XVI. 508.
   Comp. his letter to Spalatin about the difficulties in Job, Feb. 23,
   1524, in De Wette, II. 486.

   [442] Luther's copy of the Hebrew Bible is preserved in the Royal
   Library at Berlin. The editio princeps of the whole Hebrew Bible
   appeared 1488 (Soncino: Abraham ben Chayin de' Tintori). A copy in
   possession of Dr. Ginsburg in England. See Stevens, l.c. p. 60.
   Portions had been printed before.

   [443] A copy of the Lyons ed. of 1519, and one of the Basel ed. of
   1509, now in possession of the Brandenburg Provincial Museum at Berlin.
   Grimm, Gesch. d. luther. Bibelübers., p. 8, note.

   [444] Lyra acquired by his Postillae perpetuae in V. et N. Test. (first
   published in Rome, 1472, in 5 vols. fol., again at Venice, 1540) the
   title Doctor planus et utilis. His influence on Luther is expressed in
   the well-known lines:-- "Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset."

   [445] Greek and Latin, 2 vols. folio. The first part contains Preface,
   Dedication to Pope Leo X., and the Ratio seu Compendium verae
   Theologiae per Erasmum Roterodamum (120 pages); the second part, the
   Greek Text, with a Latin version in parallel columns, with brief
   introductions to the several books (565 pages). At the end is a Latin
   letter of Frobenius, the publisher, dated "Nonis Fehr. Anno M.D.XIX." A
   copy in the Union Theol. Seminary, New York. - Some say that Luther
   made use of Gerbel's reprint of Erasmus, 1521. But Dr. Reuss of
   Strassburg, who has the largest collection and best knowledge of Greek
   Testaments, denies this. Gesch. der h. Schriften des N. T., 5th ed.,
   II. 211, note.

   [446] See Schaff, Companion to the Greek Testament, etc., New York, 3d
   ed., 1888, pp. 229 sqq., and the facsimile of the Erasmian ed. on p.
   532 sq. Tyndale's English version was likewise made from Erasmus.

   [447] O. von Gebhardt, in his Novum Test. Graece et Germanice, Preface,
   p. xvi., says of the second ed. of Erasmus: "Die Zahl der Druckfehler
   ist so gross, dass ein vollständiges Verzeichniss derselben Seiten
   füllen würde." Comp. Scrivener, Introd. to the Criticism of the N. T.,
   3d ed. (1883), p. 432 sq.

   [448] It first appeared in the Frankfort edition of Luther's Bible,
   1574. The revised Luther-Bible of 1883 strangely retains the passage,
   but in small type and in brackets, with the note that it was wanting in
   Luther's editions. The Probebibel departs only in a few places from the
   Erasmian text as followed by Luther: viz., Acts 12:25; Heb. 10:34; 1
   John 2:23; Rev. 11:2. In this respect the German revision is far behind
   the Anglo-American revision of 1881, which corrects the Textus Receptus
   In about five thousand places.

   [449] He says in his Tischreden (Erl. ed., vol. lxii. 313): "Ich habe
   keine gewisse, sonderliche eigene Sprache im Deutschen [i.e., no
   special dialect], sondern brauche der gemeinen deutschen Sprache, dass
   mich Oberländer und Niederländer verstehen mögen. Ich rede nach der
   sächsischen Canzelei, welcher nachfolgen alle Fürsten und Könige in
   Deutschland. Alle Beichstädte, Fürstenhöfe schreiben nach der
   sächsischen und unseres Fürsten Canzelei, darumb ists auch die
   gemeinste deutsche Sprache. Kaiser Maximilian und Kurfürst Friedrich,
   Herzog zu Sachsen, etc., haben im römischen Reich die deutschen
   Sprachen [dialects] also in eine gewisse Sprache gezogen." Formerly the
   Latin was the diplomatic language in Germany. Louis the Bavarian
   introduced the German in 1330. The founder of the diplomatic German of
   Saxony was Elector Ernst, the father of Elector Friedrich. See Wilibald
   Grimm, Gesch. der luth. Bibelübersetzung (Jena, 1884), p. 24 sqq.

   [450] The same word silverling occurs once in the English version, Isa.
   7:23, and is retained in the R. V. of 1885. The German Probebibel
   retains it in this and other passages, as Gen. 20:16; Judg. 9:4, etc.

   [451] See Grimm, Luther's Uebersetzung der Apocryphen, in the "Studien
   und Kritiken" for 1883, pp. 376-400. He judges that Luther's version of
   Ecclesiasticus (Jesus Sirach) is by no means a faithful translation,
   but a model of a free and happy reproduction from a combination of the
   Greek and Latin texts.

   [452] "Luther's Sprache," says Jakob Grimm, In the Preface to his
   German Grammar, "muss ihrer edeln, fast wunderbaren Reinheit, auch
   ihres gewaltigen Einflusses halber für Kern und Grundlage der
   neuhochdeutschen Sprachniedersetzung gehalten werden, wovon bis auf den
   heutigen Tag nur sehr unbedeutend, meistens zum Schaden der Kraft und
   des Ausdrucks, abgewichen wordenist. Man darf das Neuhochdeutsche in
   der That als den protestantischen Dialekt bezeichnen, dessen
   freiheitathmende Natur längst schon, ihnen unbewusst, Dichter und
   Schriftsteller des katholischen Glaubens überwältigte. Unsere Sprache
   ist nach dem unaufhaltsamen Laufe der Dinge in Lautverhältnissen und
   Formen gesunken; was aber ihren Geist und Leib genährt, verjüngt, was
   endlich Blüten neuer Poesie getrieben hat, verdanken wir keinem mehr
   als Luthern." Comp. Wetzel, Die Sprache Luthers in seiner Bibel,
   Stuttgart, 1850. Heinrich Rückert, Geschichte der neu-hochdeutschen
   Schriftsprache, II. 15-175. Opitz, Ueber die Sprache Luthers, Halle,
   1869. Dietz, Wörterbuch zu Luther's deutschen Schriften, Leipzig, 1870
   sqq. Lehmann, Luthers Sprache in seiner Uebersetzung des N. T., Halle,
   1873.

   [453] Annotationes des hochgel. und christl. doctors Hieronymi Emsers
   über Luthers neuw Testament, 1523. I have before me an edition of
   Freiburg-i.-B., 1535 (140 pages). Emser charges Luther with a thousand
   grammatical and fourteen hundred heretical errors. He suspects (p. 14)
   that he had before him "ein sonderlich Wickleffisch oder Hussisch
   Exemplar." He does not say whether he means a copy of the Latin Vulgate
   or the older German version. He finds (p. 17) four errors in Luther's
   version of the Lord's Prayer: 1, that he turned Vater unser into Unser
   Vater, against the German custom for a thousand years (but in his
   Shorter Catechism he retained the old form, and the Lutherans adhere to
   it to this day); 2, that he omitted der du bist; 3, that he changed the
   panis supersubstantialis (überselbständig Brot!) into panis quotidianus
   (täglich Brot); 4, that he added the doxology, which is not in the
   Vulgate. In our days, one of the chief objections against the English
   Revision is the omission of the doxology.

   [454] Das gantz New Testament: So durch den Hochgelerten L. Hieronymum
   Emser seligen verteutscht, unter des Durchlauchten Hochgebornen Fürsten
   und Herren Georgen Hertzogen zu Sachsen, etc., ausgegangen ist.
   Leipzig, 1528. The first edition appeared before Emser's death, which
   occurred Nov. 8, 1527. I find in the Union Seminary four octavo copies
   of his N. T., dated Coln, 1528 (355 pp.), Leipzig, 1529 (416 pp.),
   Freiburg-i.-B. 1535 (406 pp.), Cöln, 1568 (879 pp.), and a copy of a
   fol. ed., Cologne, 1529 (227 pp.), all with illustrations and marginal
   notes against Luther. On the concluding page, it is stated that 607
   errors of Luther's are noted and corrected. The Cologne ed. of 1529
   indicates, on the titlepage, that Luther arbitrarily changed the text
   according to the Hussite copy ("wie Martinus Luther dem rechten Text,
   dem huschischen Exemplar nach, seins gefallens ab und zugethan und
   verendert hab"). Most editions contain a Preface of Duke George of
   Saxony, in which he charges Luther with rebellion against all
   ecclesiastical and secular authority, and identifies him with the beast
   of the Apocalypse, Rev. 13 ("dass sein Mund wol genannt werden mag der
   Mund der Bestie von welcher Johannes schreibet in seiner Offenbarung am
   dreizehnten").

   [455] Dr. Döllinger, in his Reformation, vol. III. 139 sqq., 156 sqq.,
   goes into an elaborate proof. In his Luther, eine Skizze (Freiburg-i.
   -B., 1851), p. 26, he calls Luther's version "ein Meisterstück in
   sprachlicher Hinsicht, aber seinem Lehrbegriffe gemäss eingerichtet,
   und daher in vielen Stellen absichtlich unrichtig und sinnentstellend."
   So also Cardinal Hergenröther (Lehrbuch der allg. Kirchengesch., vol.
   III. 40, third ed. of 1886): "Die ganze Uebersetzung war ganz nach
   Luthers System zugerichtet, auf Verbreitung seiner Rechtfertigungslehre
   berechnet, oft durch willkührliche Entstellungen und Einschaltungen
   seinen Lehren angepasst."

   [456] By older and more recent Romanists, as Ward, Errata of the
   Protestant Bible, Dublin, 1810. Trench considers the main objections in
   his book on the Authorized Version and Revision, pp. 165 sqq. (in the
   Harper ed. of 1873). The chief passages objected to by Romanists are
   Heb. 13:4 (where the E. V. translates "Marriage is honorable in all"
   for "Let marriage be honorable among all"); 1 Cor. 11:27 ("and" for
   "or"); Gal. 5:6 ("faith which worketh by love;" which is correct
   according to the prevailing sense of energeisthai, and corresponds to
   the Vulgate operatur, against the Roman view of the passive sense,
   "wrought by love," in conformity with the doctrine of fides formata),
   and the rendering of eidolon by image, instead of idol. The E. V. has
   also been charged with a Calvinistic bias from its connection with
   Beza's Greek text and Latin notes.

   [457] But he omitted allein in Gal. 2:16, where it might be just as
   well justified, and where the pre-Lutheran Bible reads "nur durch den
   Glauben." However correct in substance and as an inference, the
   insertion has no business in the text as a translation. See Meyer on
   Rom. 3:28, 5th ed., and Weiss, 6th ed. (1881), also my annotations to
   Lange on Romans (p. 136).

   [458] In his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, in the Erl.-Frkf. ed., vol.
   LXV., p. 107 sqq. It was published in September, 1530, with special
   reference to Emser, whom he does not name, but calls "the scribbler
   from Dresden" ("der dresdener Sudler").

   [459] The Revisers of the Probebibel retained the interpolated allein
   in Rom. 8:28, the nur in 4:15, and the incorrect rendering in
   3:25,26,--a striking proof of Luther's overpowering influence even over
   conscientious critical scholars in Germany. Dr. Grimm, the
   lexicographer (l.c., p. 48), unjustly censures Meyer and Stier for
   omitting the word allein. I have an old copy of Luther's Testament,
   without titlepage, before me, where the word allein is printed in
   larger type with a marginal finger pointing to it.

   [460] The Prefaces are collected in the 7th volume of Bindseil's
   edition of the Luther Bible, and in the 63d volume of the Erlangen ed.
   of Luther's works. The most important is his preface to the Epistle to
   the Romans, and his most objectionable that to the Epistle of James.

   [461] He adds in the marginal note on Rev. 17: "Hie zeiget er die
   römische Kirche in ihrer Gestalt und Wesen, die verdammt soll werden."
   His friend Cranach, in the accompanying picture in the first ed., and
   also in the ed. of 1535, represents the harlot as riding on a dragon
   with a triple crown on her head.

   [462] Biblia beider Allt unnd Newen Testamenten, fleissig, treulich vn
   Christlich nach alter inn Christlicher Kirchen gehabter Translation,
   mit Ausslegung etlicher dunckeler ort und besserung vieler verrückter
   wort und sprüch ... Durch D. Johan Dietenberger, new verdeutscht. Gott
   zu ewiger ehre unnd wolfarth seiner heil. Christlichen Kirchen ...
   Meynz, 1534, fol. From a copy in the Union Seminary (Van Ess library).
   Well printed and illustrated.

   [463] I have before me three copies of as many folio editions of Eck's
   Bible, 1537, 1550, and 1558, bearing the title: Bibel Alt und New
   Testament, nach dem Text in der heiligen Kirchen gebraucht, durch
   Doctor Johan Ecken, mit fleiss, auf hochteutsch verdolmetscht, etc.
   They were printed at Ingolstadt, and agree in the number of pages
   (1035), and vary only in the date of publication. They contain in an
   appendix the Prayer of Manasseh, the Third Book of Maccabees, and the
   spurious Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans.

   [464] There is an Italian proverb that translators are traitors
   (Traduttori traditori). Jerome speaks of versiones which are
   eversiones. As Trench says, there are in every translation "unavoidable
   losses inherent in the nature of the task, in the relations of one
   language to the other, in the lack of accurate correlations between
   them, in the different schemes of their construction."

   [465] Hence the stiffness of literalism and the abundance of Latinisms
   in the Rhemish Version of the N. T. (first published in 1582, second
   ed. 1600, third ed. at Douay, 1621), such as "supersubstantial bread"
   for daily or needful bread (Jerome introduced supersubstantialis for
   the difficult epiousios in the Lord's Prayer, Matt. 6:11, but retained
   quotidianus in Luke), transmigration of Babylon, impudicity,
   coinquinations, postulations, agnition, cogitation, prepuce, pasche,
   exinanite, contristate, domesticals, exemplars of the coelestials, etc.
   Some of them have been silently removed in modern editions. The notes
   of the older editions abound in fulminations against heretics.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 64. Melanchthon's Theology.

   See Literature in § 38, pp. 182 sq. The 21st vol. of the "Corpus
   Reformatorum" (1106 fol. pages) is devoted to the various editions of
   Melanchthon's Loci Theologici, and gives bibliographical lists (fol. 59
   sqq.; 561 sqq.), and also an earlier outline from an unpublished MS.
   Comp. Carl Schmidt, Phil. Mel., pp. 64-75; and on Melanchthon's
   doctrinal changes, Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. 1. 261 sqq.

   While Luther translated the New Testament on the Wartburg, Melanchthon
   prepared the first system of Protestant theology at Wittenberg. Both
   drew from the same fountain, and labored for the same end, but in
   different ways. Luther built up the Reformation among the people in the
   German tongue; Melanchthon gave it methodical shape for scholars by his
   Latin writings. The former worked in the quarries, and cut the rough
   blocks of granite; the latter constructed the blocks into a habitable
   building. Luther expressed a modest self-estimate, and a high estimate
   of his friend, when he said that his superiority was more "in the
   rhetorical way," while Melanchthon was "a better logician and
   reasoner."

   Melanchthon finished his "Theological Common-Places or Ground-Thoughts
   (Loci Communes or Loci Theologici), in April, 1521, and sent the
   proof-sheets to Luther on the Wartburg. They appeared for the first
   time before the Close of that year. [466]

   This book marks an epoch in the history of theology. It grew out of
   exegetical lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, the Magna Charta of
   the evangelical system. It is an exposition of the leading doctrines of
   sin and grace, repentance and salvation. It is clear, fresh, thoroughly
   biblical, and practical. Its main object is to show that man cannot be
   saved by works of the law or by his own merits, but only by the free
   grace of God in Christ as revealed in the gospel. It presents the
   living soul of divinity, in striking contrast to the dry bones of
   degenerate scholasticism with its endless theses, antitheses,
   definitions, divisions, and subdivisions.

   The first edition was written in the interest of practical Christianity
   rather than scientific theology. It is meagre in the range of topics,
   and defective in execution. It is confined to anthropology and
   soteriology, and barely mentions the metaphysical doctrines of the
   Trinity and the incarnation, as transcendent mysteries to be adored
   rather than curiously discussed. It has a polemical hearing against the
   Romanists, in view of the recent condemnation of Luther by the
   Sorbonne. It also contains some crude and extreme opinions which the
   author afterwards abandoned. Altogether in its first shape it was an
   unripe production, though most remarkable if we consider the youth of
   the author, who was then only twenty-four years of age.

   Melanchthon shared at first Luther's antipathy to scholastic theology;
   but he learned to distinguish between pure and legitimate scholasticism
   and a barren formalism, as also between the Aristotelian philosophy
   itself and the skeleton of it which was worshiped as an idol in the
   universities at that time. He knew especially the value of Aristotle's
   ethics, wrote a commentary on the same (1529), and made important
   original contributions to the science of Christian ethics in his
   Philosophiae Moralis Epitome (1535). [467]

   Under his improving hand, the Loci assumed in subsequent editions the
   proportions of a full, mature, and well-proportioned system, stated in
   calm, clear, dignified language, freed from polemics against the
   Sorbonne and contemptuous flings at the schoolmen and Fathers. He
   embraced in twenty-four chapters all the usual topics from God and the
   creation to the resurrection of the body, with a concluding chapter on
   Christian liberty. He approached the scholastic method, and even
   ventured, in opposition to the Anti-Trinitarians, on a new speculative
   proof of the Holy Trinity from psychological analogies. He never
   forsakes the scriptural basis, but occasionally quotes also the Fathers
   to show their supposed or real agreement with evangelical doctrines.

   Melanchthon's theology, like that of Luther, grew from step to step in
   the heat of controversy. Calvin's Institutes came finished from his
   brain, like Minerva out of the head of Jupiter.

   The Loci prepared the way for the Augsburg Confession (1530), in which
   Melanchthon gave to the leading doctrines official shape and symbolical
   authority for the Lutheran Church. But he did not stop there, and
   passed through several changes, which we must anticipate in order to
   form a proper estimate of that work.

   The editions of his theological manual are divided into three classes:
   1, those from 1521 to 1535; 2, those from 1535 to 1544; 3, those from
   1544 to 1559. The edition of 1535 (dedicated to King Henry VIII. of
   England, and translated into German by Justus Jonas) was a thorough
   revision. This and the editions which followed embody, besides
   additions in matter and improvements in style, important modifications
   of his views on predestination and free will, on the real presence, and
   on justification by faith. He gave up necessitarianism for synergism,
   the corporeal presence in the eucharist for a spiritual real presence,
   and solifidianism for the necessity of good works. In the first and
   third article he made an approach to the Roman-Catholic system, in the
   second to Calvinism.

   The changes were the result of his continued study of the Bible and the
   Fathers, and his personal conferences with Roman and Reformed divines
   at Augsburg and in the colloquies of Frankfort, Hagenau, Worms, and
   Ratisbon. He calls them elucidations of obscurities, moderations of
   extreme views, and sober second thoughts. [468]

   1. He denied at first, with Luther and Augustin, all freedom of the
   human will in spiritual things. [469] He even held the Stoic doctrine
   of the necessary occurrence of all actions, bad as well as good,
   including the adultery of David and the treason of Judas as well as the
   conversion of Paul. [470]

   But on closer examination, and partly under the influence of Erasmus,
   he abandoned this stoic fatalism as a dangerous error, inconsistent
   with Christianity and morality. He taught instead a co-operation of the
   divine and human will in the work of conversion; thus anticipating
   Arminianism, and approaching the older semi-Pelagianism, but giving the
   initiative to divine grace. "God," he said in 1535, "is not the cause
   of sin, and does not will sin; but the will of the Devil and the will
   of man are the causes of sin." Human nature is radically, but not
   absolutely and hopelessly, corrupt; it can not without the aid of the
   Holy Spirit produce spiritual affections such as the fear and love of
   God, and true obedience; but it can accept or reject divine grace. God
   precedes, calls, moves, supports us; but we must follow, and not
   resist. Three causes concur in the conversion,--the word of God, the
   Holy Spirit, and the will of man. Melanchthon quotes from the Greek
   Fathers who lay great stress on human freedom, and he accepts
   Chrysostom's sentence: "God draws the willing."

   He intimated this synergistic view in the eighteenth article of the
   altered Augsburg Confession, and in the German edition of the Apology
   of the Confession. But he continued to deny the meritoriousness of good
   works; and in the colloquy of Worms, 1557, he declined to condemn the
   doctrine of the slavery of the human will, because Luther had adhered
   to it to the end. He was willing to tolerate it as a theological
   opinion, although he himself had rejected it.

   2. As to the Lord's Supper, he first accepted Luther's view under the
   impression that it was supported by the ancient Church. But in this he
   was shaken by Oecolampadius, who proved (1530) that the Fathers held
   different opinions, and that Augustin did not teach an oral
   manducation. After 1534 he virtually gave up for himself, though he
   would not condemn and exclude, the conception of a corporeal presence
   and oral manducation of the body and blood of Christ; and laid the main
   stress on the spiritual, yet real presence and communion with Christ.

   He changed the tenth article of the Augsburg Confession in 1540, and
   made it acceptable to Reformed divines by omitting the anti-Zwinglian
   clause. But he never accepted the Zwinglian theory of a mere
   commemoration. His later eucharistic theory closely approached that of
   Calvin; while on the subject of predestination and free will he
   differed from him. Calvin, who had written a preface to the French
   translation of the Loci Theologici, expressed, in private letters, his
   surprise that so great a theologian could reject the Scripture doctrine
   of eternal predestination; yet they maintained an intimate friendship
   to the end, and proved that theological differences need not prevent
   religious harmony and fraternal fellowship.

   3. Melanchthon never surrendered the doctrine of justification by
   faith; but he laid in his later years, in opposition to antinomian
   excesses, greater stress on the necessity of good works of faith, not
   indeed as a condition of salvation and in a sense of acquiring merit,
   but as an indispensable proof of the duty of obedience to the divine
   will.

   These doctrinal changes gave rise to bitter controversies after
   Luther's death, and were ultimately rejected in the Formula of Concord
   (1577), but revived again at a later period. Luther himself never
   adopted and never openly opposed them.

   The Loci of Melanchthon met from the start with extraordinary favor.
   Edition after edition appeared in Wittenberg during the author's
   lifetime, the last from his own hand in the year 1559, besides a number
   of contemporaneous reprints at Basel, Hagenau, Strassburg, Frankfurt,
   Leipzig, Halle, and many editions after his death.

   Luther had an extravagant opinion of them, and even declared them
   worthy of a place in the Canon. [471] He thought that his translation
   of the Bible, and Melanchthon's Loci, were the best outfit of a
   theologian, and almost superseded all other books. [472]

   The Loci became the text-book of Lutheran theology in the universities,
   and took the place of Peter Lombard's Sentences. Strigel and Chemnitz
   wrote commentaries on them. Leonhard Hutter likewise followed them,
   till he published a more orthodox compend (1610) which threw them into
   the shade and even out of use during the seventeenth century.

   The theological manual of Melanchthon proved a great help to the
   Reformation. The Romanists felt its power. Emser called it a new Koran
   and a pest. In opposition to them, he and Eck wrote Loci Catholici.
   [473]

   Melanchthon's Loci are the ablest theological work of the Lutheran
   Church in the sixteenth century. Calvin's Institutes (1536) equal them
   in freshness and fervor, and surpass them in completeness, logical
   order, philosophical grasp, and classical finish.

   It is remarkable that the first and greatest dogmatic systems of the
   Reformation proceeded from these two lay-theologians who were never
   ordained by human hands, but received the unction from on high. [474]
   So the twelve apostles were not baptized by Christ with water, but with
   the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [466] Under the title: Loci communes rerum theologicarum seu
   hypotyposes theologicae, Wittenberg, 1521. Bindseil puts the
   publication in December. I have a copy of the Leipzig ed. of M.D.LIX.,
   which numbers 858 pages without indices, and bears the title: Loci
   Praecipui Theologici. Nunc denuo cura et diligentia summa recogniti,
   multisque in locis copiose illustrati, cum appendice disputationis de
   conjugio, etc.

   [467] See his ethical writings in vol. XVI. of his Opera, in the "Corp.
   Reform.," and a discussion of their merits in Wuttke's Handbuch der
   christl. Sittenlehre, 3d ed. (1874), I. 148 sqq.

   [468] See his letters to his friend Camerarius, 2 Sept. 1535 ("Corp.
   Ref." II. 936), and Dec. 24, 1535 (ib. II. 1027): "Ego nunc in meis
   Locis multa mitigavi." ... "In Locis meis videor habere deuteras
   phrontidas." His letters are interspersed with Greek words and
   classical reminiscences.

   [469] Loc. Theol., 1521 A.7: "Quandoquidem omnia quae eveniunt,
   necessario juxta divinam praedestinationem eveniunt, nulla est
   voluntatis nostrae libertas." He refers to Rom. 9 and 11 and Matt.
   10:29.

   [470] In his Com. in Ep. ad Roman., 1524, cap. 8: "Itaque sit haec
   certa sententia, a Deo fieri omnia tam bona quam mala ... Constat Deum
   omnia facere non permissive sed potenter,--ita ut sit ejus proprium
   opus Judae proditio, sicut Pauli vocatio." Luther published this
   commentary without Melanchthon's knowledge, and humorously dedicated it
   to him.

   [471] Invictus libellus non solum immortalitate, sed quoque canone
   ecclesiastico dignus."In the beginning of De Servo Arbitrio (1525),
   against Erasmus.

   [472] He says in his Tischreden (Erl. ed., LIX. 278 sq.): "Wer itzt ein
   Theologus will werden, der hat grosse Vortheil. Denn erstlich hat er
   die Bibel, die ist nu so klar, dam er sie kann lesen ohne alle
   Hinderung. Darnach lese er darzu die locos communes Philippi; die lese
   er fleissig und wohl, also dass er sie gar im Kopfe habe. Wenn er die
   zwei Stücke hat, so ist er ein Theologus, dem weder der Teufel noch
   kein Ketzer etwas abbrechen kann, und ihm stehet die ganze Theologia
   offen, dass er Alles, was er will, darnach lesen kann ad
   aedificationem. Und wenn er will, so mag er auch dazu lesen Philippi
   Melanchthonis Commentarium in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos. Lieset er
   alsdenn darzu meinen commentarium in Epistolam ad Galatas und in
   Deuteronomium, so gebe ich ihm denn eloquentiam et copiam verborum. Ihr
   findet kein Buch unter allen seinen Büchern, da die summa religionis
   oder die ganze Theologia so fein bei einander ist, als in den locis
   communibus. Leset alle Patres und Sententiarios, so ist es doch Alles
   nichts dagegen. Non est melior liber post scripturam sanctam, quam
   ipsius loci communes. Philippus ist enger gespannet denn ich; ille
   pugnat et docet; ich bin mehr ein Rhetoricus oder ein Wäscher
   [Deutscher?]"

   [473] Eck's Loci Communes adversus Lutheranos, Landshut, 1525, passed
   through many editions.

   [474] Melanchthon was simply professor, first of Greek, then of
   theology. Calvin was destined by his father for the clerical
   profession, and he received the tonsure; but there is no record of his
   ordination for the priesthood.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 65. Protestant Radicalism. Disturbances at Erfurt.

   I. Letters of Luther from May, 1521, to March, 1522, to Melanchthon,
   Link, Lange, Spalatin, etc., in De Wette, vol. II.

   II. F. W. Kampschulte: Die Universität Erfurt in ihrem Verh. zu dem
   Humanismus und der Reformation. Trier, 1858. Second part, chs. III. and
   IV. pp. 106 sqq.

   III. Biographies of Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt, by Füsslin
   (1776), Jäger (Stuttgart, 1856), Erbkam (in Herzogii, VII. 523 sqq.).

   IV. Gieseler, IV. 61-65 (Am. ed.). Marheineke, chs. X. and XI. (I. 303
   sqq.). Merle D'AuB., bk. IX. chs. 6-8. Köstlin, bk. IV. chs. 3 and 4
   (I. 494 sqq.). Ranke, II. 7-26. Janssen, II. 204-227.

   While Luther and Melanchthon laid a solid foundation for an evangelical
   church and evangelical theology, their work was endangered by the
   destructive zeal of friends who turned the reformation into a
   revolution. The best thing may be undone by being overdone. Freedom is
   a two-edged sword, and liable to the worst abuse as well as to the best
   use. Tares will grow up in every wheat-field, and they sometimes choke
   the wheat. But the work of destruction was overruled for the
   consolidation of the Reformation. Old rotten buildings had to be broken
   down before a new one could be constructed.

   The Reformation during its first five years was a battle of words, not
   of deeds. It scattered the seeds of new institutions all over Germany,
   but the old forms and usages still remained. The new wine had not yet
   burst the old skin bottles. The Protestant soul dwelt in the Catholic
   body. The apostles after the day of Pentecost continued to visit the
   temple and the synagogue, and to observe circumcision, the sabbath, and
   other customs of the fathers, hoping for the conversion of all Israel,
   until they were cast out by the Jewish hierarchy. So the Protestants
   remained in external communion with the mother Church, attending Latin
   mass, bowing before the transubstantiated elements on the altar,
   praying the Ave Maria, worshiping saints, pictures, and crucifixes,
   making pilgrimages to holy shrines, observing the festivals of the
   Roman calendar, and conforming to the seven sacraments which
   accompanied them at every step of life from the cradle to the grave.
   The bishops were still in charge of their dioceses, and unmarried
   priests and deacons performed all the ecclesiastical functions. The
   convents were still occupied by monks and nuns, who went through their
   daily devotions and ascetic exercises. The outside looked just as
   before, while the inside had undergone a radical change.

   This was the case even in Saxony and at Wittenberg, the nursery of the
   new state of things. Luther himself did not at first contemplate any
   outward change. He labored and hoped for a reformation of faith and
   doctrine within the Catholic Church, under the lead of the bishops,
   without a division, but he was now cast out by the highest authorities,
   and came gradually to see that he must build a new structure on the new
   foundation which he h ad laid by his writings and by the translation of
   the New Testament.

   The negative part of these changes, especially the abolition of the
   mass and of monasticism, was made by advanced radicals among his
   disciples, who had more zeal than discretion, and mistook liberty for
   license.

   While Luther was confined on the Wartburg, his followers were like
   children out of school, like soldiers without a captain. Some of them
   thought that he had stopped half way, and that they must complete what
   he had begun. They took the work of destruction and reconstruction into
   their own inexperienced and unskillful hands. Order gave way to
   confusion, and the Reformation was threatened with disastrous failure.

   The first disturbances broke out at Erfurt in June, 1521, shortly after
   Luther's triumphant passage through the town on his way to Worms. Two
   young priests were excommunicated for taking part in the enthusiastic
   demonstrations. This created the greatest indignation. Twelve hundred
   students, workmen, and ruffians attacked and demolished in a few days
   sixty houses of the priests, who escaped violence only by flight. [475]

   The magistrate looked quietly on, as if in league with the
   insurrection. Similar scenes of violence were repeated during the
   summer. The monks under the lead of the Augustinians, forgetting their
   vows, left the convents, laid aside the monastic dress, and took up
   their abode among the people to work for a living, or to become a
   burden to others, or to preach the new faith.

   Luther saw in these proceedings the work of Satan, who was bringing
   shame and reproach on the gospel. [476] He feared that many left the
   cloister for the same reason for which they had entered, namely, from
   love of the belly and carnal freedom. [477]

   During these troubles Crotus, the enthusiastic admirer of Luther,
   resigned the rectorship of the university, left Erfurt, and afterwards
   returned to the mother Church. The Peasants' War of 1525 was another
   blow. Eobanus, the Latin poet who had greeted Luther on his entry,
   accepted a call to Nürnberg. The greatest celebrities left the city, or
   were disheartened, and died in poverty.

   From this time dates the decay of the university, once the flourishing
   seat of humanism and patriotic aspirations. It never recovered its
   former prosperity.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [475] Kampschulte, l.c., II. 117 sqq., gives a full account of this
   Pfaffenstum and its consequences.

   [476] See his letters to Melanchthon and Spalatin, in De Wette, II.
   7sq., 31. To the latter he wrote: "Erfordiae Satanas suis studiis nobis
   insidiatus est, ut nostros mala fama inureret, sed nihil proficiet: non
   sunt nostri, qui haec faciunt."

   [477] Letter to Lange, March 28, 1522, in De Wette, II. 175.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 66. The Revolution at Wittenberg. Carlstadt and the New Prophets.

   See Lit. in § 65.

   In Wittenberg the same spirit of violence broke out under the lead of
   Luther's older colleague, Andreas Carlstadt, known to us from his ill
   success at the Leipzig disputation. He was a man of considerable
   originality, learning, eloquence, zeal, and courage, but eccentric,
   radical, injudicious, ill-balanced, restless, and ambitious for
   leadership.

   He taught at first the theology of mediaeval scholasticism, but became
   under Luther's influence a strict Augustinian, and utterly denied the
   liberty of the human will.

   He wrote the first critical work on the Canon of the Scriptures, and
   anticipated the biblical criticism of modern times. He weighed the
   historic evidence, discriminated between three orders of books as of
   first, second, and third dignity, putting the Hagiographa of the Old
   Testament and the seven Antilegomena of the New in the third order, and
   expressed doubts on the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He based
   his objections to the Antilegomena, not on dogmatic grounds, as Luther,
   but on the want of historical testimony; his opposition to the
   traditional Canon was itself traditional; he put ante-Nicene against
   post-Nicene tradition. This book on the Canon, however, was crude and
   premature, and passed out of sight. [478]

   He invented some curious and untenable interpretations of Scripture,
   e.g., of the words of institution of the Lord's Supper. He referred the
   word "this," not to the bread, but to the body of Christ, so as to
   mean: "I am now ready to offer this (body) as a sacrifice in death." He
   did not, however, publish this view till 1524, and afterwards made
   common cause with Zwingli.

   Carlstadt preached and wrote, during Luther's absence, against
   celibacy, monastic vows, and the mass. At Christmas, 1521, he omitted
   in the service the most objectionable parts of the Canon of the mass,
   and the elevation of the host, and distributed both wine and bread to a
   large congregation. He announced at the same time that he would lay
   aside the priestly dress and other ceremonies. Two days afterwards he
   was engaged to the daughter of a poor nobleman in the presence of
   distinguished professors of the university, and on Jan. 20, 1522, he
   was married. He gave improper notoriety to this act by inviting the
   whole university and the magistrate, and by publishing a book in
   justification of it.

   He was not, however, the first priest who openly burst the chains of
   celibacy. Bartholomäus Bernhardi of Feldkirchen, a Wittenberg
   licentiate and newly elected Probst at Kemberg, and two other priests
   of less reputable character, had preceded him in 1521. Justus Jonas
   followed the example, and took a wife Feb. 10, 1522, to get rid of
   temptations to impurity (1 Cor. 7:12). Luther approved of these
   marriages, but did not intend at that time to follow the example.

   Carlstadt went further, and maintained that no priest without wife and
   children should receive an appointment (so he explained "must" in 1
   Tim. 3:2); that it was sin to commune without the cup; and that the
   monastic vow of celibacy was not binding, at least not before the
   sixtieth year of age, chastity being a free gift of God, and not at
   man's disposal. He introduced a new legalism instead of the old, in
   violation of the principle of evangelical liberty and charity.

   He also denounced pictures and images as dumb idols, which were plainly
   forbidden in the second commandment, and should be burnt rather than
   tolerated in the house of God. He induced the town council to remove
   them from the parish church; but the populace anticipated the orderly
   removal, tore them down, hewed them to pieces, and burnt them. He
   assailed the fasts, and enjoined the people to eat meat and eggs on
   fast-days. He repudiated all titles and dignities, since Christ alone
   was our Master (Matt. 23:8). He expressed contempt for theology and all
   human learning, because God had revealed the truth unto babes (Matt.
   11:25), and advised the students to take to agriculture, and earn their
   bread in the sweat of their face (Gen. 3:19). He cast away his priestly
   and academic robes, put on a plain citizen's dress, afterwards a
   peasant's coat, and had himself called brother Andrew. He ran close to
   the border of communism. He also opposed the baptism of infants. He
   lost himself in the clouds of a confused mysticism and spiritualism,
   and appealed, like the Zwickau Prophets, to immediate inspirations.

   In the beginning of November, 1521, thirty of the forty monks left the
   Augustinian convent of Wittenberg in a rather disorderly manner. One
   wished to engage in cabinet making, and to marry. The Augustinian monks
   held a congress at Wittenberg in January, 1522, and unanimously
   resolved, in accordance with Luther's advice, to give liberty of
   leaving or remaining in the convent, but required in either case a life
   of active usefulness by mental or physical labor.

   The most noted of these ex-monks was Gabriel Zwilling or Didymus, who
   preached in the parish church during Luther's absence, and was esteemed
   by some as a second Luther. He fiercely attacked the mass, the
   adoration of the sacrament, and the whole system of monasticism as
   dangerous to salvation.

   About Christmas, 1521, the revolutionary movement was reinforced by two
   fanatics from Zwickau, Nicolaus Storch, a weaver, and Marcus Thomä
   Stübner. [479] The latter had previously studied with Melanchthon, and
   was hospitably entertained by him. A few weeks afterwards Thomas
   Münzer, a millennarian enthusiast and eloquent demagogue, who figures
   prominently in the Peasants' War, appeared in Wittenberg for a short
   time. He had stirred up a religious excitement among the weavers of
   Zwickau in Saxony on the Bohemian frontier, perhaps in some connection
   with the Hussites or Bohemian Brethren, and organized the forces of a
   new dispensation by electing twelve apostles and seventy-two disciples.
   But the magistrate interfered, and the leaders had to leave.

   These Zwickau Prophets, as they were called, agreed with Carlstadt in
   combining an inward mysticism with practical radicalism. They boasted
   of visions, dreams, and direct communications with God and the Angel
   Gabriel, disparaged the written word and regular ministry, rejected
   infant baptism, and predicted the overthrow of the existing order of
   things, and the near approach of a democratic millennium.

   We may compare Carlstadt and the Zwickau Prophets with the Fifth
   Monarchy Men in the period of the English Commonwealth, who were
   likewise millennarian enthusiasts, and attempted, in opposition to
   Cromwell, to set up the "Kingdom of Jesus" or the fifth monarchy of
   Daniel.

   Wittenberg was in a very critical condition. The magistrate was
   discordant and helpless. Amsdorf kept aloof. Melanchthon was
   embarrassed, and too modest and timid for leadership. He had no
   confidence in visions and dreams, but could not satisfactorily answer
   the objections to infant baptism, which the prophets declared useless
   because a foreign faith of parents or sponsors could not save the
   child. Luther got over this difficulty by assuming that the Holy Spirit
   wrought faith in the child.

   The Elector was requested to interfere; but he dared not, as a layman,
   decide theological and ecclesiastical questions. He preferred to let
   things take their natural course, and trusted in the overruling
   providence of God. He believed in Gamaliel's counsel, which is good
   enough in the preparatory and experimental stages of a new movement.
   His strength lay in a wise, cautious, peaceful diplomacy. But at this
   time valor was the better part of discretion.

   The only man who could check the wild spirit of revolution, and save
   the ship of the Reformation, was Luther.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [478] Libellus de Canonicis Scripturis, Wittenb. 1520; also in German:
   Welche Bücher heilig und biblisch seind. Comp. Weiss, Einleitung in's
   N. T. (1886), p. 109, and Reuss, Histoire du Canon (1863), 357 sqq.
   (Hunter's translation, p. 336 sq.)

   [479] Marcus (Marx) Thomä and Stübner are not two distinct persons, but
   identical. See Köstlin's note, vol. I. 804 sq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 67. Luther returns to Wittenberg.

   Walch, XV. 2374-2403. De Wette, II. 137 sqq.

   Luther was informed of all these disturbances. He saw the necessity of
   some changes, but regretted the violence with which they had been made
   before public opinion was prepared, and he feared a re-action which
   radicalism is always likely to produce. The Latin mass as a sacrifice,
   with the adoration of the host, the monastic institution, the worship
   of saints, images and relics, processions and pilgrimages, and a large
   number of superstitious ceremonies, were incompatible with Protestant
   doctrines. Worship had sooner or later to be conducted in the
   vernacular tongue; the sacrifice of the mass must give way to a
   commemorative communion; the cup must be restored to the laity, and the
   right of marriage to the clergy. He acquiesced in these changes. But
   about clerical vestments, crucifixes, and external ceremonies, he was
   indifferent; nor did he object to the use of pictures, provided they
   were not made objects of worship. In such matters he asserted the right
   of Christian freedom, against coercion for or against them. As to the
   pretended revelations of the new prophets, he despised them, and
   maintained that an inspired prophet must either be ordinarily called by
   church authority, or prove his divine commission by miracles.

   He first went to Wittenberg in disguise, and spent three days there in
   December, 1621. He stayed under the roof of Amsdorf, and dared not show
   himself in the convent or on the street.

   When the disturbances increased, he felt it his duty to reappear openly
   on the arena of conflict. He saw from the Wartburg his own house
   burning, and hastened to extinguish the flames. The Elector feared for
   his safety, as the Edict of Worms was still in force, and the Diet of
   Nürnberg was approaching. He ordered him to remain in his concealment.
   Luther was all his life an advocate of strict submission to the civil
   magistrates in their own proper sphere; but on this occasion be set
   aside the considerations of prudence, and obeyed the higher law of God
   and his conscience. His reply to the Elector (whom be never met
   personally) bears noble testimony to his sublime faith in God's
   all-ruling providence. It is dated Ash Wednesday (March 5, 1522), from
   Borne, south of Leipzig. He wrote in substance as follows: [480] --

   "Grace and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, and my
   most humble service.

   "Most illustrious, high-born Elector, most gracious Lord! I received
   the letter and warning of your Electoral Grace on Friday evening [Feb.
   26], before my departure [March 1]. That your Electoral Grace is moved
   by the best intention, needs no assurance from me. I also mean well,
   but this is of no account .... If I were not certain that we have the
   pure gospel on our side, I would despair .... Your Grace knows, if not,
   I make known to you, that I have the gospel, not from men, but from
   heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ .... I write this to apprise you
   that I am on my way to Wittenberg under a far higher protection than
   that of the Elector; and I have no intention of asking your Grace's
   support. Nay, I believe that I can offer your Highness better
   protection than your Highness can offer me. Did I think that I had to
   trust in the Elector, I should not come at all. The sword is powerless
   here. God alone must act without man's interference. He who has most
   faith will be the most powerful protector. As I feel your Grace's faith
   to be still weak, I can by no means recognize in you the man who is to
   protect and save me. Your Electoral Grace asks me, what you are to do
   under these circumstances? I answer, with all submission, Do nothing at
   all, but trust in God alone .... If your Grace had faith, you would
   behold the glory of God; but as you do not yet believe, you have not
   seen it. Let us love and glorify God forever. Amen."

   Being asked by the Elector to give his reasons for a return, he
   assigned, in a letter of March 7, from Wittenberg, [481] three reasons:
   the urgent written request of the church at Wittenberg; the confusion
   in his flock; and his desire to prevent an imminent outbreak. "My
   second reason," he wrote, "is that during my absence Satan has entered
   my sheepfold, and committed ravages which I can not repair by writing,
   but only by my personal presence and living word. My conscience would
   not allow me to delay longer; I was bound to disregard, not only your
   Highness's disfavor, but the whole world's wrath. It is my flock, the
   flock intrusted to me by God; they are my children in Christ. I could
   not hesitate a moment. I am bound to suffer death for them, and will
   cheerfully with God's grace lay down my life for them, as Christ
   commands (John 10:12)."

   Luther rode without fear through the territory of his violent enemy,
   Duke George of Saxony, who was then urging the Elector to severe
   measures against him and the Wittenbergers. He informed the Elector
   that he would pass through Leipzig, as he once went to Worms, though it
   should rain Duke Georges for nine days in succession, each fiercer than
   the original in Dresden.

   He safely arrived in Wittenberg on Thursday evening, the 6th of March,
   full of faith and hope, and ready for a fight against his false
   friends.

   On this journey he had on the 3d or 4th of March an interesting
   interview with two Swiss students, Kessler and Spengler, in the tavern
   of the Black Bear at Jena. We have an account of it from one of them,
   John Kessler of St. Gallen, who afterwards became a reformer of that
   city. [482] It contrasts very favorably with his subsequent dealings
   with the Swiss, especially with Zwingli, which were clouded by
   prejudice, and embittered by intolerance. The episode was purely
   private, and had no influence upon the course of events; but it reveals
   a characteristic trait in this mighty man, who even in critical moments
   of intense earnestness did not lose his playful humor. We find the same
   combination of apparently opposite qualities when at Coburg he was
   watching the affairs of the Diet at Augsburg, and wrote a childlike
   letter to his little Hans. Such harmless humor is like the light of the
   sun breaking through dark clouds.

   The two Swiss, who had studied at Basel, were attracted by the fame of
   Luther and Melanchthon, and traveled on foot to Wittenberg to hear
   them. They arrived at Jena after a terrible thunderstorm, fatigued and
   soaked through, and humbly sat down on a bench near the door of the
   guest-chamber, when they saw a Knight seated at a table, sword in hand,
   and the Hebrew Psalter before him. Luther recognized the Swiss by their
   dialect, kindly invited them to sit down at his side, and offered them
   a drink. He inquired whether Erasmus was still living in Basel, what he
   was doing, and what the people in Switzerland thought of Martin Luther.
   The students replied that some lauded him to the skies as a great
   reformer; others, especially the priests, denounced him as an
   intolerable heretic. During the conversation two traders came in; one
   took from his pocket Luther's sermons on the Gospels and Epistles, and
   remarked that the writer must be either an angel from heaven or a devil
   from hell. At dinner Luther gave them a rare feast of reason and flow
   of soul. The astonished students suspected that the mysterious Knight
   was Ulrich von Hutten, when Luther, turning to the host, smilingly
   remarked, "Behold, I have become a nobleman over the night: these Swiss
   think that I am Hutten; you take me for Luther. The next thing will be
   that I am Marcolfus." He gave his young friends good advice to study
   the biblical languages with Melanchthon, paid their bill, offered them
   first a glass of beer, but substituted for it a glass of wine, since
   the Swiss were not used to beer, and with a shake of the hand he begged
   them to remember him to Doctor Jerome Schurf, their countryman, at
   Wittenberg. When they wished to know the name of the sender of the
   salutation, he replied, "Simply tell him that he who is coming sends
   greeting, and he will understand it."

   When the students a few days afterwards arrived at Wittenberg, and
   called on Dr. Schurf to deliver the message from "him who is coming,"
   they were agreeably surprised to find Luther there with Melanchthon,
   Jonas, and Amsdorf. Luther greeted them heartily, and introduced them
   to Melanchthon, of whom he had spoken at Jena.

   The same student has left us a description of Luther's appearance at
   that time. He was no more the meager, emaciated monk as at the Leipzig
   disputation three years previously, [483] but, as Kessler says,
   "somewhat stout, yet upright, bending backwards rather than stooping,
   with a face upturned to heaven, with deep dark eyes and eyebrows,
   twinkling and sparkling like stars, so that one could hardly look
   steadily at them." [484] These deep, dark eyes, full of strange fire,
   had struck Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg, and Cardinal Aleander at
   Worms, as the eyes of a demon. They made the same impression on John
   Dantiscus, afterwards bishop of Culm and Ermeland, who on his return
   from Spain to Poland in 1523 saw Luther in Wittenberg; he reported that
   his "eyes were sharp, and had a certain terrible coruscation of
   lightning such as was seen now and then in demoniacs," and adds that,
   "his features were like his books," and "his speech violent and full of
   scorn." But friends judged differently. Another student, Albert Burrer,
   who saw him after his return from the Wartburg, praises his mild,
   kindly countenance, his pleasant sonorous voice, his charming address,
   the piety of his words and acts, the power of his eloquence which moved
   every hearer not made of stone, and created a desire to hear him again
   and again. [485]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [480] In De Wette, II. 137-141. De Wette calls the letter "ein
   bewunderungswürdiges Denkmal des hohen Glaubensmuthes, von welchem
   Luther erfüllt war."

   [481] De Wette, II. 141-144.

   [482] Published by Bernet, Joh. Kessler genannt Athenarius, St. Gallen,
   1826, and more fully by E. Götzinger in Kessler's Sabbata, St. Gallen,
   1866 and 1868, 2 parts. See a good account in Hagenbach's Ref. Gesch.,
   pp. 141 sqq. In the Schwarze Bär hotel at Jena, where I stopped a few
   days in July, 1886, the "Lutherstube" is still shown with the likeness
   of Luther an old Bible, and Kessler's report.

   [483] See the description of Mosellanus, p. 180.

   [484] "Mit tiefen, schwarzen Augen und Braunen blinzend und zwitzerlnd
   wie ein Stern, dass die nit wohl mögen angesehen werden."

   [485] Köstlin, I. 536, with references, p. 805.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 68. Luther restores Order in Wittenberg.--The End of Carlstadt.

   I. Eight Sermons of Luther preached from Sunday, March 7 (Invocavit) to
   the next Sunday (Reminiscere), after his return to Wittenberg. The
   oldest editions, slightly varying in length, appeared 1523. Altenb.
   ed., II. 99 sqq.; Walch, XV. 2423 sqq.: XX. 1-101; Erl. ed., XXVIII.
   202-285 (both recensions). Luther's Letters to Spalatin, the Elector,
   and others from March, 1522, in De Wette, II. 144 sqq.

   II. Of modern historians, Marheineke, Merle D'Aubigné, Ranke,
   Hagenbach, and Köstlin (I. 537-549) may be compared.

   On the Sunday after his arrival, Luther ascended his old pulpit, and
   re-appeared before his congregation of citizens and students.
   Wittenberg was a small place; but what he said and did there, and what
   Calvin did afterwards in Geneva, had the significance of a
   world-historical fact, more influential at that time than an encyclical
   from Rome.

   Protestantism had reached a very critical juncture. Luther or
   Carlstadt, reformation or revolution, the written Word or illusive
   inspirations, order or confusion: that was the question. Luther was in
   the highest and best mood, full of faith in his cause, and also full of
   charity for his opponents, strong in matter, sweet in manner, and
   completely successful. He never showed such moderation and forbearance
   before or after.

   He preached eight sermons for eight days in succession, and carried the
   audience with him. They are models of effective popular eloquence, and
   among the best he ever preached. He handled the subject from the
   stand-point of a pastor, with fine tact and practical wisdom. He kept
   aloof from coarse personalities which disfigure so many of his
   polemical writings. Not one unkind word, not one unpleasant allusion,
   escaped his lips. In plain, clear, strong, scriptural language, he
   refuted the errors without naming the errorists. The positive statement
   of the truth in love is the best refutation of error. [486]

   The ruling ideas of these eight discourses are: Christian freedom and
   Christian charity; freedom from the tyranny of radicalism which would
   force the conscience against forms, as the tyranny of popery forces the
   conscience in the opposite direction; charity towards the weak, who
   must be trained like children, and tenderly dealt with, lest they
   stumble and fall. Faith is worthless without charity. No man has a
   right to compel his brother in matters that are left free; and among
   these are marriage, living in convents, private confession, fasting and
   eating, images in churches. Abuses which contradict the word of God, as
   private masses, should be abolished, but in an orderly manner and by
   proper authority. The Word of God and moral suasion must be allowed to
   do the work. Paul preached against the idols in Athens, without
   touching one of them; and yet they fell in consequence of his
   preaching.

   "Summa summarum," said Luther, "I will preach, speak, write, but I will
   force no one; for faith must be voluntary. Take me as an example. I
   stood up against the Pope, indulgences, and all papists, but without
   violence or uproar. I only urged, preached, and declared God's Word,
   nothing else. And yet while I was asleep, or drinking Wittenberg beer
   with my Philip Melanchthon and Amsdorf, the Word inflicted greater
   injury on popery than prince or emperor ever did. I did nothing, the
   Word did every thing. Had I appealed to force, all Germany might have
   been deluged with blood; yea, I might have kindled a conflict at Worms,
   so that the Emperor would not have been safe. But what would have been
   the result? Ruin and desolation of body and soul. I therefore kept
   quiet, and gave the Word free course through the world. Do you know
   what the Devil thinks when he sees men use violence to propagate the
   gospel? He sits with folded arms behind the fire of hell, and says with
   malignant looks and frightful grin: 'Ah, how wise these madmen are to
   play my game! Let them go on; I shall reap the benefit. I delight in
   it.' But when he sees the Word running and contending alone on the
   battle-field, then he shudders and shakes for fear. The Word is
   almighty, and takes captive the hearts." [487]

   Eloquence rarely achieved a more complete and honorable triumph. It was
   not the eloquence of passion and violence, but the eloquence of wisdom
   and love. It is easier to rouse the wild beast in man, than to tame it
   into submission. Melanchthon and the professors, the magistrate and
   peaceful citizens, were delighted. Dr. Schurf wrote to the Elector,
   after the sixth discourse: "Oh, what joy has Dr. Martin's return spread
   among us! His words, through divine mercy, are bringing back every day
   misguided people into the way of the truth. It is as clear as the sun,
   that the Spirit of God is in him, and that he returned to Wittenberg by
   His special providence."

   Most of the old forms were restored again, at least for a season, till
   the people were ripe for the changes. Luther himself returned to the
   convent, observed the fasts, and resumed the cowl, but laid it aside
   two years afterwards when the Elector sent him a new suit. The passage
   in the mass, however, which referred to the unbloody repetition of the
   sacrifice and the miraculous transformation of the elements, was not
   restored, and the communion in both kinds prevailed, and soon became
   the universal custom. The Elector himself, shortly before his death
   (May 5, 1525), communed with the cup.

   Didymus openly acknowledged his error, and declared that Luther
   preached like an angel. [488] But the Zwickau Prophets left Wittenberg
   for ever, and abused the Reformer as a new pope and enemy of spiritual
   religion. Münzer stirred up the Peasants' War, and met a tragic fate.
   [489]

   Carlstadt submitted silently, but sullenly. He was a disappointed and
   unhappy man, and harbored feelings of revenge against Luther. Ranke
   characterizes him as "one of those men, not rare among Germans, who
   with an inborn tendency to profundity unite the courage of rejecting
   all that is established, and defending all that others reject, without
   ever rising to a clear view and solid conviction." He resumed his
   lectures in the university for a time; but in 1523 he retired to a farm
   in the neighborhood, to live as "neighbor Andrew" with lowly peasants,
   without, however, resigning the emoluments of his professorship. He
   devoted himself more fully than ever to his mystical speculations and
   imaginary inspirations. He entered into secret correspondence with
   Münzer, though he never fully approved his political movements. He
   published at Jena, where he established a printing-press, a number of
   devotional books under the name of "a new layman," instead of Doctor of
   Theology. He induced the congregation of Orlamünde to elect him their
   pastor without authority from the academic Senate of Wittenberg which
   had the right of appointment, and introduced there his innovations in
   worship, storming the altars and images. In 1524 be openly came out
   with his novel theory of the Lord's Supper in opposition to Luther, and
   thus kindled the unfortunate eucharistic controversy which so seriously
   interfered with the peace and harmony of the Reformers. He also
   sympathized with the Anabaptists. [490] Luther after long forbearance
   gave him up as incorrigible. [491] With his consent, Carlstadt was
   exiled from Saxony (1524), but allowed to return on a sort of
   revocation, and on condition of keeping silence (1525). He evaded
   another expulsion by flight (1528). He wandered about in Germany in
   great poverty, made common cause with the Zwinglians, gave up some of
   his extravagant notions, sobered down, and found a resting-place first
   as pastor in Zürich, and then as professor of theology in Basel
   (1534-1541), where during the raging of a pestilence he finished his
   erratic career.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [486] The aletheuein en agape, Eph. 4:15.

   [487] Erl. ed., XXVIII. 219 and 260 (second sermon). The allusion to
   the drinking of "Wittenbergisch Bier mit meinem Philippo und Amsdorf"
   (p. 260) is omitted in the shorter edition, which has instead: "wenn
   ich bin guter Dinge gewesen" (p. 219).

   [488] Luther speaks favorably of him, and recommended him to a pastoral
   charge at Altenburg. See his letters in De Wette, II. 170, 183, 184.

   [489] He published at Nürnberg, 1524, a self-defense "Wider das
   geistlose sanftlebende Fleisch zu Wittenberg," and called Luther an
   "Arch-heathen," "Arch-scamp," "Wittenberg Pope," "Babylonian Woman,"
   "Dragon," "Basilisk," etc.

   [490] Nevertheless, in 1526 he invited Luther and his wife, Melanchthon
   and Jonas, as sponsors at the baptism of a new-born son in the village
   of Segren near Wittenberg. He lived after his return from exile in very
   humble circumstances, barely making a living from the sale of cakes and
   beer.

   [491] His writings against Carlstadt, in Walch, X., XV., and XX., and
   in Erl. ed., LXIV. 384-408. His book Wider die himmlischen Propheten
   (1525) is chiefly directed against Carlstadt. In the Table Talk (Erl.
   ed., LXI. 911 he calls Carlstadt and Münzer incarnate devils.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 69. The Diets of Nürnberg, a.d. 1522-1524. Adrian VI.

   I. Walch, XV. 2504 sqq. Ranke, vol. II. pp. 27-46, 70-100, 244-262. J.
   Janssen, Vol. II. 256 sqq., 315 sqq. Köstlin, I. 622 sqq.

   II. On Adrian VI. Gachard: Correspondance de Charles Quint et d'Adrian
   VI. Brux., 1859. Moring: Vita Adriani VI., 1536. Burmann: Hadrianus
   VI., sive Analecta Historica de Hadr. VI. Trajecti 1727 (includes
   Moring). Ranke: Die röm. Päpste in den letzten vier Jarhh., I., 59-64
   (8th ed. 1885). C. Höfler (Rom. Cath.): Wahl und Thronbesteigung des
   letzten deutschen Papstes, Adrian VI. Wien, 1872; and Der deutsche
   Kaiser und der letzte deutsche Papst, Carl V. und Adrian VI. Wien,
   1876. Fr. Nippold: Die Reformbestrebungen Papst Hadrian VI., und die
   Ursachen ihres Scheiterns. Leipzig, 1875. H. Bauer: Hadrian VI.
   Heidelb., 1876. Maurenbrecher: Gesch. der kathol. Reformation, I.
   202-225. Nördlingen, 1880. See also the Lit. on Charles V., § 50 (p.
   262 sqq.).

   We must now turn our attention to the political situation, and the
   attitude of the German Diet to the church question.

   The growing sympathies of the German nation with the Reformation and
   the political troubles made the execution of the papal bull and the
   Edict of Worms against Luther more and more impossible. The Emperor was
   absent in Spain, and fully occupied with the suppression of an
   insurrection, the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, and the war with
   France. Germany was threatened by the approach of the Turks, who had
   conquered Belgrad and the greater part of Hungary. The dangers of the
   nation were overruled for the progress of Protestantism.

   An important change took place in the papacy. Leo X. died Dec. 1, 1521;
   and Adrian VI. (1459-1523) was unexpectedly elected in his absence,
   perhaps by the indirect influence of the Emperor, his former pupil. The
   cardinals hardly knew what they did, and hoped he might decline.

   Adrian formed, by his moral earnestness and monastic piety, a striking
   contrast to the frivolity and worldliness of his predecessors. He was a
   Dutchman, born at Utrecht, a learned professor of theology in Louvain,
   then administrator and inquisitor of Spain, and a man of unblemished
   character. [492] He had openly denied the papal infallibility; but
   otherwise he was an orthodox Dominican, and opposed to a doctrinal
   reformation. He had combined with the Louvain professors in the
   condemnation of Luther, and advised Charles to take rigorous measures
   against him at Worms. Barefooted and without any ostentation, he
   entered Rome. He read daily mass at early dawn, took a simple meal,
   slept on a couch, and lived like a monk. He introduced strict economy
   in the papal household, and vigorously attacked the grossest abuses. He
   tried to gain the influence of Erasmus and Zwingli. . But he
   encountered opposition everywhere.

   Under these circumstances the Diet met at Nürnberg, March 23, 1522, and
   again Nov. 17, under the presidency of Ferdinand, the brother of the
   Emperor. To avert the danger of the Turks, processions and public
   prayers were ordered, and a tax imposed; but no army was raised.

   Adrian demanded the execution of the Edict of Worms, and compared
   Luther to Mohammed; but he broke the force of his request by confessing
   with surprising frankness the corruptions of the Roman court, which
   loudly called for a radical moral reform of the head and members. Never
   before had the Curia made such a confession.

   "We know," wrote the Pope in the instruction to his legate, Francesco
   Chieregati, "that for some time many abominations, abuses in
   ecclesiastical affairs, and violations of rights have taken place in
   the holy see; and that all things have been perverted into bad. From
   the head the corruption has passed to the limbs, from the Pope to the
   prelates: we have all departed; there is none that doeth good, no, not
   one." He regarded Protestantism as a just punishment for the sins of
   the prelates. He promised to do all in his power to remedy the evil,
   and to begin with the Curia whence it arose. [493]

   The Emperor was likewise in favor of a reform of discipline, though
   displeased with Adrian for not supporting him in his war with France
   and his church-spoliation schemes.

   The attempt to reform the church morally without touching the dogma had
   been made by the great Councils of the fifteenth century, and failed.
   Adrian found no sympathy in Rome, and reigned too short a time (Jan. 9,
   1522 to Sept. 14, 1523) to accomplish his desire. It was rumored that
   he died of poison; but the proof is wanting. Rome rejoiced. His
   successor, Clement VII. (1523-1534), adopted at once the policy of his
   cousin, Leo X.

   Complaint was made in the Diet against the Elector Frederick, that he
   tolerated Luther at Wittenberg, and allowed the double communion, the
   marriage of priests, and the forsaking of convents, but his controlling
   influence prevented any unfavorable action. The report of the
   suppression of the radical movements in Wittenberg made a good
   impression. Lutheran books were freely printed and sold in Nürnberg.
   Osiander preached openly against the Roman Antichrist.

   The Diet, in the answer to the Pope (framed Feb. 8 and published as an
   edict March 6, 1523), refused to execute the Edict of Worms, and
   demanded the calling of a free general council in Germany within a
   year. In the mean time, Luther should keep silence; and the preachers
   should content themselves with preaching the holy gospel according to
   the approved writings of the Christian church. At the same time the
   hundred gravamina of the German nation were repeated.

   This edict was a compromise, and did not decide the church question;
   but it averted the immediate danger to the Reformation, and so far
   marks a favorable change, as compared with the Edict of Worms. It was
   the beginning of the political emancipation of Germany from the control
   of the papacy. Luther was rather pleased with it, except the
   prohibition of preaching and writing, which he did not obey.

   The influence of the edict, however, was weakened by several events
   which occurred soon afterwards.

   At a new Diet at Nürnberg in January, 1524, where the shrewd Pope
   Clement VII. was represented by Cardinal Campeggio, the resolution was
   passed to execute the Edict of Worms, though with the elastic clause,
   "as far as possible."

   At the earnest solicitation of the papal nuncio, the Archduke Ferdinand
   of Austria, and the Dukes William and Louis of Bavaria, together with
   twelve bishops of South Germany, concluded at Ratisbon, July 6, 1524, a
   league for the protection of the Roman faith against the Reformation,
   with the exception of the abolition of some glaring abuses which did
   not touch doctrines. [494] The Emperor lent it his influence by issuing
   a stringent edict (July 27, 1524). This was an ominous event. The
   Romish league called forth a Protestant counter-league of Philip of
   Hesse and John of Saxony, at Torgau in June, 1526, although against the
   advice of the Wittenberg Reformers, who feared more evil than good from
   a union of politics with religion and trusted to the power of the Word
   of God without any carnal weapons.

   Thus the German nation was divided into two hostile camps. From this
   unhappy division arose the political weakness of the empire, and the
   terrible calamities of the Smalkaldian and the Thirty Years' Wars. In
   1525 the Peasants' War broke out, and gave new strength to the
   reaction, but only for a short time.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [492] Ranke (Päpste, I. 60): "Adrian war von durchaus unbescholtenem
   Ruf: rechtschaffen, fromm, thätig; sehr ernsthaft, man sah ihn nie
   anders als leise mit den Lippen lächeln; aber voll wohlwollender,
   reiner Absichten: ein wahrer Geistlicher. Welch ein Gegensatz, als er
   nun dort einzog, wo Leo so prächtig und verschwenderisch Hof gehalten!
   Es existirt ein Brief von ihm, in welchem er sagt: er möchte lieber in
   seiner Propstei zu Löwen Gott dienen als Papst sein." Pallavicino calls
   him "ecclesiastico ottimo, pontifide mediocre."

   [493] "Ut primum curia haec, unde forte omne hoc malum processit,
   reformetur." See the instruction in Raynaldus, ad ann. 1522, Tom. XI.
   363. Luther published it with sarcastic comments. Pallavicino charges
   Adrian with exaggeration and want of prudence, which he thought was
   "often more important for the public good than personal holiness." See
   Hergenröther, III. 43.

   [494] See details in Ranke, II., 108 sqq. and in Janssen, II., 336 sqq.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 70. Luther and Henry VIII

   Henricus VIII.: Adsertio VII. Sacram. adv. Luth. Lond. 1521. A German
   translation by Frick, 1522, in Walch, XIX., 158 sqq. Lutherus: Contra
   Henricum Regem. 1522. Also freely reproduced in German by Luther. His
   letter to Henry, Sept. 1, 1525. Auf des Königs in England Lästerschrift
   M. Luther's Antwort. 1527. Afterwards also in Latin. See the documents
   in Walch, XIX. 153-521; Erl. ed., XXVIII. 343 sqq.; XXX. 1-14. Comp.
   also Luther's letters of Feb. 4 and March 11, 1527, in De Wette III.
   161 and 163.

   With all his opposition to Ultra-Protestantism in church and state,
   Luther did not mean to yield an inch to the Romanists. This appears
   from two very personal controversies which took place during these
   disturbances,--the one with Henry VIII. concerning the sacraments; the
   other with Erasmus about predestination and free-will. In both he
   forgot the admirable lessons of moderation which he had enjoined from
   the pulpit in Wittenberg. He used again the club of Hercules.

   Henry VIII. of England urged Charles V. to exterminate the Lutheran
   heresy by force, and wrote in 1521 (probably with the assistance of his
   chaplain, Edward Lee), a scholastic defence of the seven sacraments,
   against Luther's "Babylonish Captivity." He dedicated the book to Pope
   Leo X. He treated the Reformer with the utmost contempt, as a
   blasphemer and servant of Satan. He used the old weapons of church
   authority against freedom. He adhered to the dogma of
   transubstantiation, even after his breach with Rome. Pope Clement VII.
   judged that this book was written with the aid of the Holy Spirit, and
   promised indulgence to all who read it. At the same time he gratified
   the ambition of the vain king by confirming the title "Defender of the
   Faith," which Leo had already conferred upon him. [495]

   The Protestant successors of Henry have retained the title to this day,
   though with a very different view of its meaning. The British
   sovereigns are defenders of the Episcopal Church in England, and of the
   Presbyterian Church in Scotland, and in both characters enemies of the
   Church of Rome.

   Luther read the King a lecture (in Latin and German) such as was rarely
   read to any crowned head. He called him "King Henry, of God's disgrace
   (or wrath), King of England," and heaped upon him the most abusive
   epithets. [496] He incidentally hit other princes, saying that "King
   Henry helps to prove the proverb that there are no greater fools than
   kings and princes." Such a style of polemics can not be justified by
   the coarseness of the age, or the nature of the provocation, and did
   more harm to Luther than to Henry. His best friends regretted it; yet
   long afterwards he even surpassed the violence, if possible, in his
   savage and scurrilous attack upon Duke Henry of Brunswick. [497]

   When there was a prospect of gaining Henry VIII. for the cause of the
   Reformation, Luther made the matter worse by a strange inconsistency.
   In a most humble letter of Sept. 1, 1525, be retracted (not his
   doctrine, but) all the personal abuse, asked his pardon, and offered to
   honor his name publicly. Henry in his reply refused the offer with
   royal pride and scorn, and said that he now despised him as heartily
   for his cowardice as he had formerly hated him for his heresy. He also
   charged him with violating a nun consecrated to God, and leading other
   monks into a breach of their vows and into eternal perdition. Emser
   published a German translation of Luther's letter and the King's answer
   (which was transmitted through Duke George of Saxony), and accompanied
   it with new vituperations and slanders (1527). All the Romanists
   regarded this controversy, and the similar correspondence with Duke
   George, as a great blow to the Reformation.

   Luther now resumed his former sarcastic tone; but it was a painful
   effort, and did not improve the case. He suspected that the answer was
   written by Erasmus, who had "more skill and sense in his finger than
   the King with all his wiseacres." He emphatically denied that he had
   offered to retract any of his doctrines. "I say, No, no, no, as long as
   I breathe, no matter how it offend king, emperor, prince, or devil ....
   In short, my doctrine is the main thing of which I boast, not only
   against princes and kings, but also against all devils. The other
   thing, my life and person, I know well enough to be sinful, and nothing
   to boast of; I am a poor sinner, and let all my enemies be saints or
   angels. I am both proud and humble as St. Paul (Phil. 2:3)."

   In December of the same year in which he wrote his first book against
   King Henry, Luther began his important treatise "On the Secular Power,
   and how far obedience is due to it." He defends here the divine right
   and authority of the secular magistrate, and the duty of passive
   obedience, on the ground of Matt. 5:39 and Rom. 13:1, but only in
   temporal affairs. While he forbade the use of carnal force, he never
   shrank from telling even his own prince the truth in the plainest
   manner. He exercised the freedom of speech and of the press to the
   fullest extent, both in favor of the Reformation and against political
   revolution. The Reformation elevated the state at the expense of the
   freedom of the church; while Romanism lowered the dignity of the state
   to the position of an obedient servant of the hierarchy.

   One wrong does not justify another. Yet those Roman-Catholic historians
   who make capital of this humiliating conduct of the Reformer, against
   his cause, should remember that Cardinal Pole, whom they magnify as one
   of the greatest and purest men of that age, in his book on the Unity of
   the Church, abused King Henry as violently and more keenly, although he
   was his king and benefactor, and had not given him any personal
   provocation; while Luther wrote in self-defense only, and was with all
   his passionate temper a man of kind and generous feelings.

   Melanchthon regretted the fierce attack on King Henry; and when the
   king began to favor the Reformation, he dedicated to him the revised
   edition of his theological Loci (1535). He was twice called to England,
   but declined. [498]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [495] Pallavicino and Hergenröther (III. 41) show that Leo conferred
   the title in a bull of Oct. 11, 1521, and that Clement confirmed it in
   a bull of March 5, 1523.

   [496] Especially in the German edition of his reply, where Henry is
   styled not only a gekrönter Esel (crowned donkey) and elender Narr
   (miserable fool), but even a verruchter Schurke, unverschämter Lügner,
   Gotteslästerer, etc ."I say it before all the world, that the King of
   England is a liar and no gentleman (ein Unbiedermann)." He makes fun of
   his title "Defender of Faith." The papists who deny Christ may need
   such a defender; but "the true church disdains a human patron, and
   sings, 'Dominus mihi adjutor' (Ps. 9:10), and 'Nolite confidere in
   principibus' (Ps. 118:8, 9)." In conclusion he apologizes for his
   violence, because he had to deal with "unvernünftigen wilden
   Ungeheuern." Card. Hergenröther (Kirchengesch. III. 41, 3d, 1886) says:
   "Luther antwortete in der gemeinsten und boshaftesten Weise, die
   Grobheit zur Classicität ausbildend."

   [497] Wider Hanswurst, 1541.

   [498] He wrote in March: "Ego jam alteris literis in Angliam vocor"
   (Op. II 708).
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 71. Erasmus.

   I. Erasmus: Opera omnia, ed. by Beatus Rhenanus, Basil. 1540-41; 8
   vols. fol.; best ed. by Clericus (Le Clerk), Lugd. Bat. 1703-06; 10
   tom. in 11 vols. fol. There are several English translations of his
   Enchiridion, Encomium, Adagia, Colloquia, and smaller tracts. His most
   important theological works are his editions of the Greek Test. (1516,
   '19,' 22,' 27, '35, exclusive of more than thirty reprints), his
   Annotations and Paraphrases, his Enchiridion Militis Christiani, his
   editions of Laur. Valla, Jerome, Augustin, Ambrose, Origen, and other
   Fathers. His Moriae Encomium, or Panegyric of Folly (composed 1509),
   was often edited. His letters are very important for the literary
   history of his age. His most popular book is his Colloquies, which
   contain the wittiest exposures of the follies and abuses of monkery,
   fasting, pilgrimages, etc. English transl. by N. Bailey, Lond. 1724;
   new ed. with notes by Rev. E. Johnson, 1878, 2 vols. After 1514 all his
   works were published by his friend John Froben in Basel.

   Comp. Adalb. Horawitz: Erasmus v. Rotterdam und Martinus Lipsius, Wien,
   1882; Erasmiana, several numbers, Wien, 1882-85 (reprinted from the
   Sitzungsberichte of the Imperial Academy of Vienna; contains extracts
   from the correspondence of Er., discovered in a Codex at Louvain, and
   in the Codex Rehdigeranus, 254 of the city library at Breslau, founded
   by Rehdiger). Horawitz and Hartfelder: Briefwechsel des Beatus
   Rhenanus, Leipzig, 1886.

   II. Biographies of Erasmus by himself and by Beatus Rhenanus, in vol.
   I. of the ed. of Clericus; by Pierre Bayle, in his "Dictionnaire"
   (1696); Knight, Cambr. 1726; Jortin, Lond. 1748, 2 vols.; 1808, 3 vols.
   (chiefly a summary of the letters of Erasmus with critical comments);
   Burigny, Paris, 1757, 2 vols.; Henke, Halle, 1782, 2 vols.; Hess,
   Zürich, 1789, 2 vols.; Butler, London, 1825; Ad. Müller, Hamburg, 1828
   (Leben des E. v. Rotterdam ... Eine gekrönte Preisschrift; comp. the
   excellent review of Ullmann in the "Studien und Kritiken," 1829, No.
   I.); Glasius (prize essay in Dutch), The Hague, 1850; Stichart (Er. v.
   Rotterd., seine Stellung zur Kirche und zu den Kirchl. Bewegungen
   seiner Zeit), Leipz. 1870; Durand de Laur (Erasme, précurseur et
   initiateur de l'esprit moderne), Par. 1873, 2 vols.; R. B. Drummond
   (Erasmus, his Life and Character), Lond. 1873, 2 vols.; G. Feugère
   (Er., étude sur sa vie et ses ouvrages), Par. 1874; Pennington, Lond.
   1875; Milman (in Savonarola, Erasmus, and other Essays), Lond. 1870;
   Nisard, Rénaissance et réforme, Paris, 1877.--Also Woker: De Erasmi
   Rotterodami studiis irenicis. Paderborn, 1872. W. Vischer: Erasmiana.
   Programm zur Rectoratsfeier der Univers. Basel. Basel, 1876. "Erasmus"
   in Ersch and Gruber, vol. XXXVI. (by Erhard); in the "Allg. Deutsche
   Biogr." VI. 160-180 (by Kämmel); in Herzog,1 IV. 114-121 (by
   Hagenbach), and in Herzog,2 IV. 278-290 (by R. Stähelin); in the
   "Encycl. Brit.," 9th ed., VIII. 512-518. Schlottmann: Erasmus
   redivivus, Hal. 1883. Comp. Lit. in § 72.

   The quarrel between King Henry and Luther was the occasion of a far
   more serious controversy and open breach between Erasmus and the
   Reformation. This involved a separation of humanism from Protestantism.

   The Position of Erasmus.

   Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam [499] (1466-1536) was the king among
   scholars in the early part of the sixteenth century. He combined native
   genius, classical and biblical learning, lively imagination, keen wit,
   and refined taste. He was the most cultivated man of his age, and the
   admired leader of scholastic Europe from Germany to Italy and Spain,
   from England to Hungary. The visible unity of the Catholic Church, and
   the easy interchange of ideas through the medium of one learned
   language, explain in part his unique position. No man before or since
   acquired such undisputed sovereignty in the republic of letters. No
   such sovereignty is possible nowadays when distinguished scholars are
   far more numerous, and when the Church is divided into hostile camps.
   [500]

   Erasmus shines in the front rank of the humanists and forerunners of
   the Reformation, on the dividing line between the middle ages and
   modern times. His great mission was to revive the spirit of classical
   and Christian antiquity, and to make it a reforming power within the
   church. He cleared the way for a work of construction which required
   stronger hands than his. He had no creative and no organizing power.
   The first period of his life till 1524 was progressive and reformatory;
   the second, till his death, 1536, was conservative and reactionary.

   He did more than any of his contemporaries to prepare the church for
   the Reformation by the impulse he gave to classical, biblical, and
   patristic studies, and by his satirical exposures of ecclesiastical
   abuses and monastic ignorance and bigotry. But he stopped half way, and
   after a period of, hesitation he openly declared war against Luther,
   thereby injuring both his own reputation and the progress of the
   movement among scholars. He was a reformer against reform, and in
   league with Rome. Thus he lost the respect and confidence of both
   parties. It would have been better for his fame if he had died in 1516,
   just after issuing the Greek Testament, a year before the Reformation.
   To do justice to him, we must look backward. Men of transition, like
   Staupitz, Reuchlin, and Erasmus, are no less necessary than bold
   leaders of a new departure. They belong to the class of which John the
   Baptist is the highest type. Protestants should never forget the
   immense debt of gratitude which they owe to the first editor of the
   Greek Testament who enabled Luther and Tyndale to make their
   translations of the word of life from the original, and to lead men to
   the very fountain of all that is most valuable and permanent in the
   Reformation. His edition was hastily prepared, before the art of
   textual criticism was born; but it anticipated the publication of the
   ponderous Complutensian Polyglot, and became the basis of the popularly
   received text. His exegetical opinions still receive and deserve the
   attention of commentators. To him we owe also the first scholarly
   editions of the Fathers, especially of Jerome, with whom he was most in
   sympathy. From these editions the Reformers drew their weapons of
   patristic controversy with the Romanists, who always appealed to the
   fathers of the Nicene age rather than to the grandfathers of the
   apostolic age.

   Erasmus was allied to Reuchlin and Ulrich von Hutten, but greater and
   far more influential than both. All hated monasticism and obscurantism.
   Reuchlin revived Hebrew, Erasmus Greek learning, so necessary for the
   cultivation of biblical studies. Reuchlin gave his nephew Melanchthon
   to Wittenberg, but died a good Catholic. Hutten became a radical
   ultra-reformer, fell out with Erasmus, who disowned him when he was
   most in need of a friend, and perished in disgrace. Erasmus survived
   both, to protest against Protestantism.

   And yet he cannot be charged with apostasy or even with inconsistency.
   He never was a Protestant, and never meant to be one. Division and
   separation did not enter into his program. From beginning to end he
   labored for a reformation within the church and within the papacy, not
   without it. But the new wine burst the old bottles. The reform which he
   set in motion went beyond him, and left him behind. In some of his
   opinions, however, he was ahead of his age, and anticipated a more
   modern stage of Protestantism. He was as much a forerunner of
   Rationalism as of the Reformation.

   Sketch of His Life.

   Erasmus was the illegitimate son of a Dutch priest, Gerard, and
   Margaret, the daughter of a physician,--their last but not their only
   child. [501] He was born in Rotterdam, Oct. 27, in the year 1466 or
   1467. [502] He received his early education in the cathedral school of
   Utrecht and in a flourishing classical academy at Deventer, where he
   began to show his brilliant talents, especially a most tenacious
   memory. Books were his chief delight. Already in his twelfth year he
   knew Horace and Terence by heart.

   After the death of his mother, he was robbed of his inheritance by his
   guardians, and put against his will into a convent at Herzogenbusch,
   which he exchanged afterwards for one at Steyn (Emaus), near Gouda, a
   few miles from Rotterdam.

   He spent five unhappy years in monastic seclusion (1486-1491), and
   conceived an utter disgust for monkery. Ulrich von Hutten passed
   through the same experience, with the same negative result; while for
   Luther monastic life was his free choice, and became the cradle of a
   new religious life. Erasmus found relief in the study of the classics,
   which he pursued without a guide, by a secret impulse of nature. We
   have from this period a number of his compositions in poetry and prose,
   odes to Christ and the holy Virgin, invectives against despisers of
   eloquence, and an essay on the contempt of the world, in which he
   describes the corruptions of the world and the vices of the monks.

   He was delivered from his prison life in 1491 by the bishop of Cambray,
   his parsimonious patron, and ordained to the priesthood in 1492. He
   continued in the clerical profession, and remained unmarried, but never
   had a parish.

   He now gave himself up entirely to study in the University of Paris and
   at Orleans. His favorite authors were Cicero, Terence, Plutarch, and
   Lucian among the classics, Jerome among the fathers, and Laurentius
   Valla the commentator. He led hereafter an independent literary life
   without a regular charge, supporting himself by teaching, and then
   supported by rich friends. [503] In his days of poverty he solicited
   aid in letters of mingled humility and vanity; when he became famous,
   he received liberal gifts and pensions from prelates and princes, and
   left at his death seven thousand ducats. The title of royal counsellor
   of the King of Spain (Charles V.) brought him an annual income of four
   hundred guilders after 1516. The smaller pensions were paid
   irregularly, and sometimes failed in that impecunious age. Authors
   seldom received copy money or royalty from publishers and printers, but
   voluntary donations from patrons of learning and persons to whom they
   dedicated their works. Froben, however, his chief publisher, treated
   Erasmus very generously. He traveled extensively, like St. Jerome, and
   made the personal acquaintance of the chief celebrities in church and
   state.

   He paid two important visits to England, first on the invitation of his
   grateful and generous pupil, Lord Montjoy, between 1498 and 1500, and
   again in 1510. There he became intimate with the like-minded Sir Thomas
   More, Dean Colet, Archbishop Warham, Cardinal Wolsey, Bishop Fisher,
   and was introduced to King Henry VII. and to Prince Henry, afterwards
   Henry VIII. Colet taught him that theology must return from
   scholasticism to the Scriptures, and from dry dogmas to practical
   wisdom. [504] For this purpose he devoted more attention to Greek at
   Oxford, but never attained to the same proficiency in it as in Latin.
   On his second visit he was appointed Lady Margaret's professor of
   divinity, and reader of Greek, in Cambridge. His room in Queen's
   College is still shown. The number of his hearers was small, and so was
   his income. "Still," he wrote to a friend in London, "I am doing my
   best to promote sound scholarship." He had much to say in praise of
   England, where he received so much kindness, but also in complaint of
   bad beer and bad wine, and of his robbery at Dover, where he was
   relieved of all his money in the custom-house, under a law that no one
   should take more than a small sum out of the realm.

   Between his visits to England he spent three years in Italy
   (1506-1509), and bathed in the fountain of the renaissance. He took the
   degree of doctor of divinity at Turin, and remained some time in
   Venice, Padua, Bologna, and Rome. He edited the classics of Greece and
   Rome, with specimens of translations, and superintended the press of
   Manutius Aldus at Venice. He entered into the genius of antiquity, and
   felt at home there. He calls Venice the most magnificent city of the
   world. But the lovely scenery of Italy, and the majestic grandeur of
   the Alps, seem to have made no more impression upon his mind than upon
   that of Luther; at least, he does not speak of it.

   After he returned from his last visit to England, he spent his time
   alternately at Brussels, Antwerp, and Louvain (1515-1521). He often
   visited Basel, and made this ancient city of republican Switzerland, on
   the boundaries between France and Germany, his permanent home in 1521.
   There he lived several years as editor and adviser of his friend and
   publisher, John Froben, who raised his press to the first rank in
   Europe. Basel was neutral till 1529, when the Reformation was
   introduced. It suited his position and taste. He liked the climate and
   the society. The bishop of Basel and the magistrate treated him with
   the greatest consideration. The university was then in its glory. He
   was not one of the public teachers, but enjoyed the intercourse of
   Wyttenbach, Capito, Glarean, Pellican, Amerbach. "I am here," he wrote
   to a friend, "as in the most agreeable museum of many and very eminent
   scholars. Everybody knows Latin and Greek, most of them also Hebrew.
   The one excels in history, the other in theology; one is well versed in
   mathematics, another in antiquities, a third in jurisprudence. You know
   how rarely we meet with such a combination. I at least never found it
   before. Besides these literary advantages, what candor, hospitality,
   and harmony prevail here everywhere! You would swear that all had but
   one heart and one soul."

   The fame of Erasmus brought on an extensive correspondence. His letters
   and books had the widest circulation. The "Praise of Folly" passed
   through seven editions in a few months, and through at least
   twenty-seven editions during his lifetime. Of his "Colloquies," a
   bookseller in Paris printed twenty-four thousand copies. His journeys
   were triumphal processions. Deputations received him in the larger
   cities with addresses of welcome. He was treated like a prince.
   Scholars, bishops, cardinals, kings, and popes paid him homage, sent
   him presents, or gave him pensions. He was offered by the Cardinal of
   Sion, besides a handsome board, the liberal sum of five hundred ducats
   annually, if he would live with him in Rome. He was in high favor with
   Pope Julius II. and Leo X., who patronized liberal learning. The former
   released him from his monastic vows; the latter invited him to Rome,
   and would have given him any thing if he had consented to remain.
   Adrian VI. asked his counsel how to deal with the Lutheran heresy
   (1523). Clement VII., in reply to a letter, sent him a present of two
   hundred florins. Paul III. offered him a cardinal's hat to reward him
   for his attack on Luther (1536), but he declined it on account of old
   age.

   The humanists were loudest in his praise, and almost worshiped him.
   Eoban Hesse, the prince of Latin poets of the time, called him a
   "divine being," and made a pilgrimage on foot from Erfurt to Holland to
   see him face to face. Justus Jonas did the same. Zwingli visited him in
   Basel, and before going to sleep used to read some pages of his
   writings. To receive a letter from him was a good fortune, and to have
   a personal interview with him was an event. A man even less vain than
   Erasmus could not have escaped the bad effect of such hero-worship. But
   it was partly neutralized by the detractions of his enemies, who were
   numerous and unsparing. Among these were Stunica and Caranza of Spain,
   Edward Lee of England, the Prince of Carpi, Cardinal Aleander, the
   leaders of scholastic divinity of Louvain and Paris, and the whole
   crowd of ignorant monks.

   His later years were disturbed by the death of his dearest and kindest
   friend, John Froben (1527), to whose memory he paid a most noble
   tribute in one of his letters; and still more by the progress of the
   Reformation in his own neighborhood. The optimism of his youth and
   manhood gave way to a gloomy, discontented pessimism. The Lutheran
   tragedy, he said, gave him more pain than the stone which tortured him.
   "It is part of my unhappy fate, that my old age has fallen on these
   evil times when quarrels and riots prevail everywhere." "This new
   gospel," he writes in another letter, "is producing a new set of men so
   impudent, hypocritical, and abusive, such liars and sycophants, who
   agree neither with one another nor with anybody else, so universally
   offensive and seditious, such madmen and ranters, and in short so
   utterly distasteful to me that if I knew of any city in which I should
   be free from them, I would remove there at once." His last letters are
   full of such useless lamentations. He had the mortification to see
   Protestantism triumph in a tumultuous way in Basel, through the labors
   of Oecolampadius, his former friend and associate. It is pleasant,
   however, and creditable to him, that his last interview with the
   reformer was friendly and cordial. The authorities of the city left him
   undisturbed. But he reluctantly moved to the Roman Catholic city of
   Freiburg in Baden (1529), wishing that Basel might enjoy every
   blessing, and never receive a sadder guest than he. [505] He bought a
   house in Freiburg, lived there six years, and was treated with every
   demonstration of respect, but did not feel happy, and yielded to the
   solicitations of the Queen Regent of the Netherlands to return to his
   native land.

   On his way he stopped in Basel in the house of Jerome Froben, August,
   1535, and attended to the publication of Origen. It was his last work.
   He fell sick, and died in his seventieth year, July 12, 1536, of his
   old enemies, the stone and the gout, to which was added dysentery. He
   retained his consciousness and genial humor to the last. When his three
   friends, Amerbach, Froben, and Episcopius, visited him on his
   death-bed, he reminded them of Job's three comforters, and playfully
   asked them about the torn garments, and the ashes that should be
   sprinkled on their heads. He died without a priest or any ceremonial of
   the Church (in wretched monastic Latin: "sine crux, sine lux, sine
   Deus"), but invoking the mercy of Christ. His last words, repeated
   again and again, were, "O Jesus, have mercy; Lord, deliver me; Lord,
   make an end; Lord, have mercy upon me!" [506]

   In his will, dated Feb. 12, 1536, he left his valuables to Froben,
   Rhenanus, and other friends, and the rest to the aged and poor and for
   the education of young men of promise. [507] The funeral was attended
   by distinguished men of both parties. He lies buried in the Protestant
   cathedral of Basel, where his memory is cherished.

   Erasmus was of small stature, but well formed. He had a delicate
   constitution, an irritable temperament, fair skin, blonde hair,
   wrinkled forehead, blue eyes, and pleasant voice. His face had an
   expression of thoughtfulness and quiet studiousness. [508] In his
   behavior he combined dignity and grace. "His manners and conversation,"
   says Beatus Rhenanus, "were polished, affable, and even charming."

   He talked and wrote in Latin, the universal language of scholars in
   mediaeval Europe. He handled it as a living language, with ease,
   elegance, and effect, though not with classical correctness. His style
   was Ciceronian, but modified by the ecclesiastical vocabulary of
   Jerome. In his dialogue "Ciceronianus," or on the best mode of speaking
   (1528), he ridicules those pedantic semi-pagans, chiefly Italians, who
   worshiped and aped Cicero, and avoided Christian themes, or borrowed
   names and titles from heathen mythology. He had, however, the greatest
   respect for Cicero, and hoped that "he is now living peacefully in
   heaven." He learned neither German nor English nor Italian, and had
   only an imperfect knowledge of French, and even of his native Dutch.

   He had a nervous sensibility. The least draught made him feverish. He
   could not bear the iron stoves of Germany, and required an open
   fireplace. He could drink no wine but Burgundy. He abhorred
   intemperance. He could not eat fish on fast days; the mere smell of it
   made him sick: his heart, he said, was Catholic, but his stomach
   Lutheran. He never used spectacles either by day or by candle-light,
   and many wondered that study had not blinded his eyes. He walked firm
   and erect without a cane. His favorite exercise was horseback-riding.
   [509] He usually traveled on horseback with an attendant, and carried
   his necessaries, including a shirt, a linen nightcap, and a
   prayer-book, in a knapsack tied to the saddle. He shrank from the mere
   mention of death, and frankly confessed that he was not born to be a
   martyr, but would in the hour of trial be tempted to follow St. Peter.
   He was fond of children, and charitable to the poor.

   His Theological Opinions.

   Erasmus was, like most of the German and English humanists, a sincere
   and enlightened believer in Christianity, and differed in this respect
   from the frivolous and infidel humanists of France and Italy. When
   charged by Prince Albertus Pius of Carpi, who was in high favor at the
   papal court, with turning sacred things into ridicule, he answered,
   "You will much more readily find scoffers at sacred things in Italy
   among men of your own rank, ay, and in your much-lauded Rome, than with
   us. I could not endure to sit down at table with such men." He devoted
   his brilliant genius and classical lore to the service of religion. He
   revered the Bible as a divine revelation, and zealously promoted its
   study. He anticipated Luther in the supreme estimate of the word of God
   as the true source of theology and piety. Oecolampadius confessed that
   he learned from Erasmus "nihil in sacris scripturis praeter Christum
   quaerendum."

   He had a sharp eye to the abuses of the Church, and endeavored to
   reform them in a peaceful way. He wished to lead theology back from the
   unfruitful speculations and frivolous subtleties of scholasticism to
   Scriptural simplicity, and to promote an inward, spiritual piety. He
   keenly ridiculed the foolish and frivolous discussions of the schoolmen
   about formalities and quiddities, and such questions as whether God
   could have assumed the form of a woman, or an ass, or a cucumber, or a
   flint-stone; whether the Virgin Mary was learned in the languages; and
   whether we would eat and drink after the resurrection. He exposed the
   vices and follies, the ignorance and superstition, of the monks and
   clergy. He did not spare even the papacy. "I have no desire," he wrote
   in 1523, that the primacy of the Roman See should be abolished, but I
   could wish that its discipline were such as to favor every effort to
   promote the religion of the gospel; for several ages past it has by its
   example openly taught things that are plainly averse to the doctrines
   of Christ."

   At the same time he lacked a deeper insight into the doctrines of sin
   and grace, and failed to find a positive remedy for the evils he
   complained of. In using the dangerous power of ridicule and satire
   which he shared with Lucian, he sometimes came near the line of
   profanity. Moreover, he had a decidedly skeptical vein, and in the
   present century he would probably be a moderate Rationalist.

   With his critical faculty he saw the difficulties and differences in
   the human surroundings and circumstances of the Divine Scriptures. He
   omitted in his Greek Testament the forgery of the three witnesses, 1
   John 5:7, and only inserted it under protest in the third edition
   (1522), because he had rashly promised to do so if a single Greek MS.
   could be found to contain it. [510] He doubted the genuineness of the
   pericope of the adulteress (John 8:1-11), though he retained it in the
   text. He disputed the orthodox punctuation of Rom. 9:5. He rejected the
   Pauline origin of Hebrews, and questioned the Johannean authorship of
   the Apocalypse. He judged Mark to be an abridgment of Matthew. He
   admitted lapses of memory and errors of judgment in the Apostles. He
   denied any other punishment in hell except "the perpetual anguish of
   mind which accompanies habitual sin." As to the Lord's Supper, he said,
   when asked his opinion by the magistrate of Basel about the book of
   Oecolampadius and his figurative interpretation, [511] that it was
   learned, eloquent, well written, and pious, but contrary to the general
   belief of the church from which it was dangerous to depart. There is
   good reason to believe that he doubted transubstantiation. He was also
   suspected of leaning to Arianism, because he summed up the reaching of
   Scripture on the Trinity in this sentence: "The Father is very
   frequently called God, the Son sometimes, the Holy Spirit never;" and
   he adds: "Many of the fathers who worshiped the Son with the greatest
   piety, yet scrupled to use the word homoousion, which is nowhere to be
   found in Holy Scripture." [512] He moderated the doctrine of hereditary
   sin, and defended human freedom in his notes on Romans. He emphasized
   the moral, and depreciated the doctrinal, element in Christianity. He
   deemed the Apostles' Creed sufficient, and was willing to allow within
   this limit freedom for theological opinions. "Reduce the number of
   dogmas," he advised Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz, "to a minimum; you
   can do it without injury to Christianity; on other points, leave every
   one free to believe what he pleases; then religion will take hold on
   life, and you can correct the abuses of which the world justly
   complains."

   He had a high opinion of the morality and piety of the nobler heathen,
   such as Socrates, Cicero, and Plutarch. "The Scriptures," he says in
   his Colloquies, "deserve, indeed, the highest authority; but I find
   also in the writings of the ancient heathen and in the poets so much
   that is pure, holy and divine, that I must believe that their hearts
   were divinely moved. The spirit of Christ is perhaps more widely
   diffused than we imagine, and many will appear among the saints who are
   not in our catalogue." [513] Then, after quoting from Cicero and
   Socrates, he says, "I can often hardly restrain myself from exclaiming,
   'Holy Socrates, pray for us.' "

   The same liberal sentiments we find among the early Greek fathers
   (Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen), and in Zwingli.

   Bigoted Catholics hated and feared him, as much as the liberal admired
   and lauded him. "He laid the egg," they said, "which Luther hatched."
   [514] They perverted his name into Errasmus because of his errors,
   Arasmus because he ploughed up old truths and traditions, Erasinus
   because he had made himself an ass by his writings. They even called
   him Behemoth and Antichrist. The Sorbonne condemned thirty-seven
   articles extracted from his writings in 1527. His books were burned in
   Spain, and long after his death placed on the Index in Rome.

   In his last word to his popish enemies who identified him with Luther
   to ruin both together, he writes: "For the future I despise them, and I
   wish I had always done so; for it is no pleasure to drown the croaking
   of frogs. Let them say, with their stout defiance of divine and human
   laws, 'We ought to obey God rather than men.' That was well said by the
   Apostles, and even on their lips it is not without a certain propriety;
   only it is not the same God in the two cases. The God of the Apostles
   was the Maker of heaven and earth: their God is their belly. Fare ye
   well." [515]

   His Works.

   The literary labors of Erasmus may be divided into three classes: --

   I. Works edited. Their number proves his marvellous industry and
   enterprise.

   He published the ancient Latin classics, Cicero, Terence, Seneca, Livy,
   Pliny; and the Greek classics with Latin translations, Euripides,
   Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plutarch, Lucian.

   He edited the principal church fathers (some for the first time from
   MSS.); namely, Jerome (1516-1518; ed. ii., 1526; ed. iii., a year after
   his death), Cyprian (1520), Athanasius (in a Latin version, 1522),
   Hilarius (1523), Irenaeus (Latin, 1526, ed. princeps, very defective),
   Ambrose (1527), Augustin (1529), Epiphanius (1529), Chrysostom on
   Matthew (1530), Basil (in Greek, 1532; he called him the "Christian
   Demosthenes"), Origen (in Latin, 1536). He wrote the prefaces and
   dedications.

   He published the Annotations of Laurentius Valla on the New Testament
   (1505 and 1526), a copy of which he had found by chance on the shelves
   of an old library.

   The most important of his edited works is the Greek New Testament, with
   a Latin translation. [516]

   II. Original works on general literature.

   His "Adages" (Adagia), begun at Oxford, dedicated to Lord Mountjoy,
   first published in Paris in 1500, and much enlarged in subsequent
   editions, [517] is an anthology of forty-one hundred and fifty-one
   Greek and Latin proverbs, similitudes, and sentences,--a sort of
   dictionary and commonplace-book, brimful of learning, illustrations,
   anecdotes, historical and biographical sketches, attacks on monks,
   priests, and kings, and about ten thousand quotations from Greek poets,
   literally translated into the Latin in the metre of the original.

   "The Praise of Folly" (Encomium Moriae) [518] was written on a journey
   from Italy to England, and finished in the house of his congenial
   friend, Sir Thomas More (whose name in Greek means "Fool"), as a jeu
   d'esprit, in the manner of his favorite Lucian. It introduces Folly
   personified as a goddess, in ironical praise of the merits, and
   indirect ridicule of the perversities, of different classes of society.
   It abounds in irony, wit, and humor, in keen observations of men and
   things, and contains his philosophy of life. The wise man is the most
   miserable of men, as is proved by the case of Socrates, who only
   succeeded in making himself ridiculous; while the fool is the happiest
   man, has no fear of death or hell, no tortures of conscience, tells
   always the truth, and is indispensable to the greatest of monarchs, who
   cannot even dine without him. In conclusion Erasmus, rather
   irreverently, quotes Scripture proofs in praise of folly. Pope Leo X.
   read and enjoyed the, book from beginning to end. Holbein illustrated
   it with humorous pictures, which are still preserved in Basel.

   In his equally popular "Colloquies" (Colloquia Familiaria), begun in
   1519, and enlarged in numerous editions, Erasmus aims to make better
   scholars and better men, as he says in his dedication to John Erasmius
   Froben (the son of his friend and publisher). [519] He gives
   instruction for Latin conversation, describes the good and bad manners
   of the times, and ventilates his views on a variety of interesting
   topics, such as courtesy in saluting, rash vows a soldier's life,
   scholastic studies, the profane feast, a lover and maiden, the virgin
   opposed to matrimony, the penitent virgin, the uneasy wife, the
   shipwreck, rich beggars, the alchemist, etc. The "Colloquies" are, next
   to the "Praise of Folly," his most characteristic work, and, like it,
   abound in delicate humor, keen irony, biting satire. He pays a glowing
   tribute to Cicero, and calls him "sanctum illud pectus afflatum
   coelesti numine;" and in the same conversation occurs the famous
   passage already referred to, "Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis." He shows
   his sympathy with the cause of Reuchlin in the dialogue Apotheosis
   Reuchlini Capnionis, by describing a vision in which the persecuted
   Hebrew scholar (who died June 22, 1522) was welcomed in heaven by St.
   Jerome, and, without leave of the Pope, enrolled in the number of
   saints. But during Reuchlin's life he had kept neutral in the Dominican
   quarrel about Reuchlin's orthodoxy. He is very severe on "the coarse,
   over-fed monks," and indulges too freely in insinuations which offend
   modern taste. [520]   He attacks war, which he hated even more than
   monkery; and in his description of a reckless, extravagant, debauched,
   sick, poor and wretched soldier, he took unchristian revenge of Ulrich
   von Hutten after his miserable death. In the dialogue, "Unequal
   Marriage," he paints him in the darkest colors as an abandoned roué. He
   gives an amusing description of a German inn, which makes one thankful
   for the progress of modern civilization. The bedrooms, he says, are
   rightly so called; for they contain nothing but a bed; and the
   cleanliness is on a par with the rest of the establishment and the
   adjoining stable. The "Ichthyophagia" is a dialogue between a butcher
   and a fishmonger, and exposes the Pharisaical tendency to strain out a
   gnat and to swallow a camel, and to lay heavy burdens on others. "Would
   they might eat nothing but garlic who imposed these fish-days upon us!"
   "Would they might starve to death who force the necessity of fasting
   upon free men!" The form of the dialogue furnished the author a door of
   escape from the charge of heresy, for he could not be held responsible
   for the sentiments of fictitious characters; moreover, he said, his
   object was to teach Latin, not theology. Nevertheless, the Sorbonne
   condemned the "Colloquies," and the Inquisition placed them in the
   first class of prohibited books.

   The numerous letters of Erasmus and to Erasmus throw much light upon
   contemporaneous literary and ecclesiastical history, and make us best
   acquainted with his personality. He corresponded with kings and
   princes, popes and cardinals, as well as with scholars in all parts of
   Europe. He tells us that he wrote sometimes forty letters in a day.
   [521]

   III. Theological works. The edition of the Greek Testament, with a new
   Latin version and brief annotations, and the independent paraphrases,
   are the most important contributions of Erasmus to exegesis, and have
   appeared in very many editions. The paraphrastic form of commenting,
   which briefly explains the difficulties, and links text and notes in
   continuous composition, so as to make the writer his own interpreter,
   [522] was a great benefit to the incipient scholarship of his day, and
   facilitated a more general spread of the New Testament, which he
   eloquently defended. He did not penetrate into the deeper meaning of
   the Scriptures, but he made the surface more intelligible by the
   moonlight of philology and refined culture. His Paraphrases cover the
   whole New Testament, except the Apocalypse, and fill the seventh volume
   of Le Clerk's edition of his works. A translation was published in two
   volumes folio, in black-letter, at London, 1551, and appointed, by
   public authority, to be placed in all the parish churches of England.

   His "Method of True Theology" (Ratio verae Theologiae) [523] was
   prefixed to his first edition of the Greek Testament, and afterwards
   expanded and separately published, and dedicated to Cardinal-Archbishop
   Albrecht of Mainz (1519), in a preface full of complaints over the evil
   times of violent controversy, which, in his judgment, destroyed charity
   and the peaceful cultivation of learning and practical piety. He
   maintains that the first requisite for the study of the Scriptures is a
   knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Nor are poetry and good letters
   to be neglected. Christ clothes his teaching in poetic parables; and
   Paul quotes from the poets, but not from Aristotle.

   The Enchiridion Militis Christiani, [524] first published at Louvain,
   1501 (or 1503), [525] and translated into several languages, is a
   treatise on practical piety in its conflict with the Devil and unruly
   passions. The author borrows his weapons from the Scriptures, the
   fathers, and the Greek and Roman philosophers, and shows that the end
   of all human effort is Christ, and that the way to Christ is faith
   abounding in good works. In a later edition he added a defense, with a
   sharp attack on the scholastic theology contrasted with the plain,
   practical teaching of Christ and the apostles. The book was condemned
   by the Sorbonne as heretical.

   In the tract on the Confessional (1524), he enumerates the advantages
   and the perils of that institution which may be perverted into a means
   of propagating vice by suggesting it to young and inexperienced
   penitents. He leaves, on the whole, the impression that the
   confessional does more harm than good.

   In the book on the Tongue (1525), he eloquently describes, and
   illustrates with many anecdotes, its use and abuse. After its
   publication he wrote to his friends, "Erasmus will henceforth be mute,
   having parted with his tongue."

   But a year after appeared his book on the Institution of Christian
   Matrimony (1526), dedicated to Queen Catherine of England. It contains
   the views of an unmarried man on the choice of a mate, the duties of
   parents, and the education of children. He justly blames Tertullian and
   Jerome (he might have included all the fathers) for their extravagant
   laudation of celibacy, and suggests doubts on the sacramental character
   of marriage.

   One of his last works was a Catechism on the Apostles' Creed, the
   Decalogue, and the Lord's Prayer, which he dedicated to the father of
   the unfortunate Anne Boleyn. For the same nobleman he wrote a short
   devotional work on preparation for death.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [499] His double name is a Latin and Greek translation of his father's
   Christian name Gerard (Roger), or Gerhard = Gernhaber or
   Liebhaber,i.e., Beloved, in mediaeval Latin Desiderius, in Greek
   Erasmus, or rather Erasmius from Erasmios Lovely. He found out the
   mistake when he became familiar with Greek, and accordlingly gave his
   godson, the son of his publisher Froben, the name John Erasmius
   (Erasmiolus). In dedicating to him an improved edition of his
   Colloquies (1524), he calls this book "erasmion, the delight of the
   Muses who foster sacred things." " He was equally unfortunate in the
   additional epithet Roterodamus, instead of Roterodamensis. But he was
   innocent of both mistakes.

   [500] Drummond (II. 337) calls Erasmus "the greatest luminary of his
   age, the greatest scholar of any age." But his learning embraced only
   the literature in the Greek and Latin languages.

   [501] His father was ordained a priest after the birth of Erasmus; for
   he says that he lived with Margaret "spe conjugii," and became a priest
   in Rome on learning from his parents, who were opposed to the marriage,
   the false report that his beloved Margaret was dead.

   [502]  He says in his autobiographical sketch: "Natus Roterodami
   vigilia Simonis et Judæ circa annum 67, supra millesimum
   quadringentesimum." His friend and biographer, Beatus Rhenanus, did not
   know the year of his birth. His epitaph in Basel gives 1466; the
   inscription on his statue at Rotterdam gives 1467; the historians vary
   from 1464 to 1469. Bayle, Burigny, Müller, and Drummoud (I. 3 sq.)
   discuss the chronology.

   [503] He calls himself, in his autobiographical sketch, "dignitatum ac
   divitiarum perpetuus contemptor."

   [504] J. H. Lupton: A Life of John Colet, D. D., Dean of St. Paul's and
   Founder of St. Paul's School. London, 1887.

   [505] He dictated these lines to his friend Amerbach on departing: "Jam
   Basilea vale! qua non urbs altera multis Annis exhibuit gratius
   hospitium. Hinc precor omnia laeta tibi, simul illud, ErasmoHospes uti
   ne unquam tristior adveniat."

   [506] "O Jesu, misericordia; Domine, libera me; Domine, fac finem;
   Domine, miserere mei;" and in German or Dutch, Lieber God
   (Gott)!--Beatus Rhenanus, in Vita Er.

   [507] Drummond, II. 338-340, gives the document in full.

   [508] See the interesting description of his face by Lavater in his
   Physiognomik, quoted by Ad. Müller, p. 108, and Hagenbach, K. Gesch.,
   III. 50. There are several portraits of him,--by Matsys (1517), Dürer
   (1523), and, the best, by Holbein who painted him repeatedly at Basel.

   [509] In thanking Archbishop Warham of Canterbury for the present of a
   horse, he thus humorously describes the animal: "I have received the
   horse, which is no beauty, but a good creature notwithstanding; for he
   is free from all the mortal sins, except gluttony and laziness; and he
   is adorned with all the virtues of a good confessor, being pious,
   prudent, humble, modest, sober, chaste, and quiet, and neither bites
   nor kicks." To Polydore Virgil, who sent him money to procure a horse,
   he replied, "I wish you could give me any thing to cure the rider."
   ("Dedisti quo paretur equus, utinam dare possis quo reparetur eques."
   --Op. III. 934.)

   [510] ... "ne cui sit ansa calumniandi. Tametsi suspicor codicem illum
   ad nostros esse correctum."--Opera, VI. 1080. The Codex Montfortianus,
   now in Dublin, was probably written between 1519-1522, and the disputed
   passage interpolated with the purpose of injuring the reputation of
   Erasmus. See J. R. Harris, The Origin of the Leicester Codex of the N.
   Test., London and Cambridge, 1887, p. 46 sqq.

   [511] De genuina verborum Domini: Hoc est corpus meum, etc., juxta
   vetustissimos auctores expositione liber. Basil., 1525.

   [512] .. See the Preface to his edition of St. Hilary on the Trinity,
   published at Basel, 1523.

   [513] "Fortasse latius se fundit spiritus Christi quam nos
   interpretamur, et multi sunt in consortio sanctorum qui non sunt apud
   nos in catalogo."--Coll., in the conversation entitled Convivium
   Religiosum.

   [514] He himself alludes to this saying: "Ego peperi ovum, Lutherus
   exclusit" (Op. III. 840), but adds, "Egoposui ovum gallinaceum,
   Lutherus exclusit pullum longe dissimillimum."

   [515] Des. Erasmi Epistola ad quosdam impudentissimos Graculos
   (jackdaws). Op. IX. Pars II. (or vol. X.), p. 1745; Drummond, II. 265
   sq.

   [516] On this see the critical introductions to the New Testament;
   Scrivener's Introd. to the Criticism of the N. T., 3d ed., pp. 429-434;
   Schaff's Companion to the Greek Test., 3d ed., pp. 229-232; and
   Drummond, I. 308 sqq.

   [517] The last edition before me, Adagiorum Chiliades ... ex officina
   Frobenia, 1536, contains 1087 pages folio, with an alphabetical index
   of the Proverbs. See vol. II. of the Leiden ed. For extracts see
   Drummond, I. ch. X.

   [518] Morias Enkomion, id est Stultitiae Laus, first printed 1510 or
   1511. Op. IV. 405-507. There is a neat edition of the Encomium and the
   Colloquia by Tauchnitz, Leipzig, 1829. Drummond (I. 184 sqq.) gives a
   good summary of the contents.

   [519] The work which appeared in 1518 under this title, with a preface
   of Rhenanus, was disclaimed by Erasmus, except some portions which he
   had dictated more than twenty years previously to a pupil in Paris by
   way of amusement. He compared it to an ass in a lion's skin. The
   Colloquia are printed in Opera, I. 624-908. I have an edition cum notis
   selectis variorum accurante Corn. Schrevelio. Lugd., Bat. Bailey's
   translation, London, 1724, republished 1878, reproduces in racy
   colloquial English the idiomatic and proverbial Latinisms of the
   original.

   [520] In the dialogue Virgo misogamos, the maiden Catharine, who had
   resolved to become a nun, is advised by her lover Eubulus that she may
   keep her chastity more safely at home; for the monks were by no means
   all " eunuchs,"but often do all they can to deserve their name "
   fathers."("Patres vocantur, ac frequenter efficiunt, ut hoc nomen vere
   competat in ipsos.") She is also told that " all are not virgins who
   wear the veil, unless there be many in our days who share the pecular
   privilege of the Virgin Mary, of being a virgin after childbirth."The
   maiden admits the force of her lover's arguments, but refuses to be
   convinced. In the colloquy that follows, entitled Virgo poenitens, she
   acknowledges the wisdom of the advice when it was too late. She had
   scarcely been twelve days in the nunnery before she entreated her
   mother, and then her father, to take her home if they wished to save
   her life.

   [521] The Epistolae in Froben's ed. of 1540, Tom. III. fol. (1213 pp.),
   with his preface, dated Freiburg, 1529; in Le Clerk's ed., Tom. III.
   Pars I. and II. There is also a fine edition of the collected epistles
   of Erasmus, Melanchthon, Thomas More, and Lud. Vives, London, 1642, 2
   vols. fol. 2146 and 116 pages, with a good portrait of Erasmus (a copy
   in the Union Seminary). Recent additions have been made by Horawitz
   (Erasmiana, 1883 sqq.). Jortin and Drummond give many extracts from the
   epistles.

   [522] Erasmus well defines it in the dedicatory preface ad Card.
   Grimanum, before the Pauline Epistles: "hiantia committere, abrupta
   mollire, confusa digerere, evoluta evolvere, nodosa explicare, obscuris
   lucem addere, hebraismum romana civitate donare ... et ita temperare
   paraphrasinne fiat paraphronesis, h. e. sic aliter dicere ut non dicas
   alia."

   [523] Opera, vol. V. 57 sqq.

   [524] Usually translated "The Manual of a Christian Soldier;" but
   encheiridionmeans also a dagger, and he himself explains it,
   "Enchiridion, hoc est, pugiunculum."Op. V. 1-65. The first English
   translation (1533) is believed to be by William Tyndale, the translator
   of the New Testament. Another, with notes, which I have before me, is
   by Philip Wyatt Crowther, Esq., London, 1816, under the title "The
   Christian's Manual," etc.

   [525] On the disputed date see Drummond, I. 122.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 72. Erasmus and the Reformation.

   I. Erasmus: De Libero Arbitrio diatribe (1524), in Opera ed. Lugd. IX.
   Pars I. 1215 sqq., in Walch, XVIII. Hyperaspistae diatribes libri duo
   contra Servum Arbitr. M. Lutheri, in 2 parts (1526 and 1527), in Opera
   IX. Pars II. 1249 sqq., and in Walch, XVIII.

   Luther: De Servo Arbitrio ad Erasmum Roterodamun, Wittembergae, 1525.
   On the last p. of the first ed. before me is the date "Mense Decembri,
   Anno MDXXV." German in Walch, XVIII. Erl. ed. Opera Lat. VII. 113 sqq.
   Letters of Luther to Erasmus and about Erasmus in Walch, XVIII., and in
   De Wette, I. pp. 39, 52, 87, 247; II. 49; III. 427; IV, 497.

   II. Chlebus: Erasmus und Luther, in "Zeitschr. f. Hist. Theol.," 1845.
   Döllinger in his Die Reformation, 1846, vol. i. pp. 1-20. Kerker: Er.
   u. sein Theol. Standpunkt, in the "Theol. Quartalschrift," 1859. D. F.
   Strauss: Ulrich von Hutten, 4th ed. Bonn, 1878, pp. 448-484, 511-514,
   and passim. Plitt: Erasmus in s. Stellung zur Reformation, Leipz., in
   the "Zeitschrift f. Hist. Theol.," 1866, No. III. Rud. Stähelin: Eras.
   Stellung z. Reformation, Basel, 1873 (35 pp.; comp. his art. In
   Herzog2, quoted in § 71). Froude: Times of Erasmus and Luther. Three
   Lect., delivered at Newcastle, 1867 (in the first series of his "Short
   Studies on Great Subjects," New York ed., 1873, pp. 37-127), brilliant
   but inaccurate, and silent on the free-will controversy. Drummond:
   Erasmus, etc., 1873, vol. II. chs. xiii.-xv. E. Walter: Erasmus und
   Melanchthon, Bernburg, 1879. A. Gilly: Erasme de Rotterd., sa situation
   en face de l'église et de la libre pensée, Arras, 1879. Comp. also
   Kattenbusch: Luther's Lehre vom unfreien Willen, Göttingen, 1875, and
   Köstlin: Luther's Theologie, vol. II. 32-55.

   Erasmus was eighteen years older than Luther, and stood at the height
   of his fame when the reformer began his work. He differed from him as
   Jerome differed from Augustin, or Eusebius from Athanasius. Erasmus was
   essentially a scholar, Luther a reformer; the one was absorbed in
   literature, the other in religion. Erasmus aimed at illumination,
   Luther at reconstruction; the former reached the intellect of the
   educated, the latter touched the heart of the people. Erasmus labored
   for freedom of thought, Luther for freedom of conscience. Both had been
   monks, Erasmus against his will, Luther by free choice and from pious
   motives; and both hated and opposed monkery, but the former for its
   ignorance and bigotry, the latter for its self-righteousness and
   obstruction of the true way to justification and peace. Erasmus
   followed maxims of worldly wisdom; Luther, sacred principles and
   convictions. The one was willing, as he confessed, to sacrifice "a part
   of the truth for the peace of the church," and his personal comfort;
   the other was ready to die for the gospel at any moment. Erasmus was a
   trimmer and timeserver, Luther every inch a moral hero.

   Luther wrote upon his tablet (1536), "Res et verba Philippus; verba
   sine re Erasmus; res sine verbis Lutherus; nec res nec verba
   Carolostadius." But Luther himself was the master of words and matter,
   and his words were deeds. Melanchthon was an improved Erasmus on the
   side of evangelical truth.

   It is easy to see how far two men so differently constituted could go
   together, and where and when they had to part. So long as the
   Reformation moved within the church, Erasmus sympathized with it. But
   when Luther, who had at first as little notion of leaving the Catholic
   Church, burnt the Pope's bull and the decretals, and with them the
   bridge behind him, Erasmus shrank back, and feared that the remedy was
   worse than the evil. His very breadth of culture and irresolution
   became his weakness; while Luther's narrowness and determination were
   his strength. In times of war, neutrality is impossible, and we must
   join one of the two contending armies. Erasmus was for unity and peace,
   and dreaded a split of the church as the greatest calamity; and yet he
   never ceased to rebuke the abuses. It was his misfortune, rather than
   his fault, that he could not side with the Reformation. We must believe
   his assertion that his conscience kept him from the cause of the
   Lutherans. At the same time he was concerned for his personal comfort
   and literary supremacy, and anxious to retain the friendship of his
   hierarchical and royal patrons. He wished to be a spectator, but not an
   actor in "the Lutheran tragedy."

   Erasmus hailed the young Melanchthon with enthusiastic praise of his
   precocious genius and learning, and continued to respect him even after
   his breach with Luther. He stood in friendly correspondence with
   Zwingli, who revered him as the prince of humanists. He employed
   Oecolampadius as his assistant, and spoke highly, though evasively, of
   his book on the eucharist. He was not displeased with Luther's attacks
   on indulgences and monasticism, and wrote to Zwingli that he had taught
   nearly every thing that Luther teaches, but without his coarseness and
   paradoxes. [526] In a letter of reply, dated Louvain, May 30, 1519, he
   courteously but cautiously and condescendingly accepted Luther's
   compliments and friendship, but advised him to moderate his tone, and
   to imitate Paul, who abolished the law by allegorical interpretation;
   at the same time he frankly admitted that he had not read his books,
   except portions of the commentary on the Psalms, [527] and that he
   considered it his duty to keep neutral, in order to do the more for the
   revival of letters. In conclusion he expressed the wish: "May the Lord
   Jesus grant you daily more of his Spirit for his glory and the general
   good." [528]

   So far, then, he objected not so much to the matter as to the manner of
   Luther, whose plebeian violence and roughness offended his cultured
   taste. But there was a deeper difference. He could not appreciate his
   cardinal doctrine of justification by faith alone, and took offence at
   the denial of free-will and human merit. He held the Catholic views on
   these subjects. He wished a reform of the discipline, but not of the
   faith, of the church, and cared little for dogmatic controversies.

   His gradual alienation may be seen in the following extracts from his
   letters.

   To Albrecht, Cardinal-Archbishop of Mainz, he wrote from Louvain, Nov.
   1, 1519: -

   "Permit me to say that I have never had any thing to do either with the
   affair of Reuchlin or with the cause of Luther. I have never taken any
   interest in the Cabbala or the Talmud. Those virulent contentions
   between Reuchlin and the party of Hochstraten have been extremely
   distasteful to me. Luther is a perfect stranger to me, and I have never
   had time to read his books beyond merely glancing over a few pages. If
   he has written well, no praise is due to me; if not, it would be unjust
   to hold me responsible .... Luther had written to me in a very
   Christian tone, as I thought; and I replied, advising him incidentally
   not to write any thing against the Roman Pontiff, nor to encourage a
   proud or intolerant spirit, but to preach the gospel out of a pure
   heart .... I am neither Luther's accuser, nor advocate, nor judge; his
   heart I would not presume to judge--for that is always a matter of
   extreme difficulty--still less would I condemn. And yet if I were to
   defend him, as a good man, which even his enemies admit him to be; as
   one put upon his trial, a duty which the laws permit even to sworn
   judges; as one persecuted--which would be only in accordance with the
   dictates of humanity--and trampled on by the bounden enemies of
   learning, who merely use him as a handle for the accomplishment of
   their designs, where would be the blame, so long as I abstained from
   mixing myself up with his cause ? In short, I think it is my duty as a
   Christian to support Luther in this sense, that, if he is innocent, I
   should not wish him to be crushed by a set of malignant villains; if he
   is in error, I would rather see him put right than destroyed: for thus
   I should be acting in accordance with the example of Christ, who, as
   the prophet witnesseth, quencheth not the smoking flax, nor breaketh
   the bruised reed."

   To Pope Leo X., from Louvain, Sept. 13, 1520 (three months after the
   excommunication of Luther, June 15): -

   "I have no acquaintance with Luther, nor have I ever read his books,
   except perhaps ten or twelve pages, and that only by snatches. From
   what I then saw, I judged him to be well qualified for expounding the
   Scriptures in the manner of the Fathers,--a work greatly needed in an
   age like this, which is so excessively given to mere subtleties, to the
   neglect of really important questions. Accordingly, I have favored his
   good, but not his bad, qualities, or rather I have favored Christ's
   glory in him. I was among the first to foresee the danger there was of
   this matter ending in violence, and no one ever hated violence more
   than I do. Indeed, I even went so far as to threaten John Froben the
   printer, to prevent him publishing his books. I wrote frequently and
   industriously to my friends, begging that they would admonish this man
   to observe Christian meekness in his writings, and do nothing to
   disturb the peace of the church. And when he himself wrote to me two
   years ago, I lovingly admonished him what I wished him to avoid; and I
   would he had followed my advice. This letter, I am informed, has been
   shown to your Holiness, I suppose in order to prejudice me, whereas it
   ought rather to conciliate your Holiness's favor towards me."

   On Dec. 5, 1520, five days before the burning of the Pope's bull,
   Erasmus, being asked for his opinion about Luther by the Elector
   Frederick of Saxony, whom he happened to meet at Cologne, hesitated a
   while, and looked blank; but being pressed by the Elector, who stood
   square before him and stared him in the face, he gave the well-known
   answer, -

   "Luther has committed two sins,--he has touched the Pope on the crown,
   and the monks on the belly." [529]

   The Elector smiled, and remembered the expression shortly before his
   death. Returned to his lodgings, Erasmus wrote down some axioms rather
   favorable to Luther and disapproving of the "Pope's unmerciful bull,"
   and sent them to Spalatin, but concealed the manuscript from fear that
   Aleander might see it; but it had been already published.

   From a letter to a friend in Basel (Louis Berus), dated Louvain, May
   14, 1521:-

   "By the bitterness of the Lutherans, and the stupidity of some who show
   more zeal than wisdom in their endeavors to heal the present disorders,
   things have been brought to such a pass, that I, for one, can see no
   issue but in the turning upside down of the whole world. What evil
   spirit can have sown this poisonous seed in human affairs? When I was
   at Cologne, I made every effort that Luther might have the glory of
   obedience and the Pope of clemency, and some of the sovereigns approved
   of this advice. But, lo and behold! the burning of the Decretals, the
   'Babylonish Captivity,' those propositions of Luther, so much stronger
   than they need be, have made the evil, it seems, incurable .... The
   only thing that remains to us, my dear Berus, is to pray that Christ,
   supreme in goodness and in power, may turn all to good; for he alone
   can do so."

   In the same month, during the sessions of the Diet of Worms, he wrote
   to Nicholas Everard, from Mechlin, 1521: -

   "If Luther had written more moderately, even though he had written
   freely, he would both have been more honored himself, and done more
   good to the world; but fate has decreed otherwise. I only wonder that
   the man is still alive .... They say that an edict is in readiness far
   more severe than the Pope's bull; [530] but from fear, or some other
   reason, it has not yet been published. I am surprised that the Pope
   should employ such agents, some of them illiterate men, and all of them
   headstrong and haughty, for the transaction of such affairs. Nothing
   can exceed the pride or violent temper of Cardinal Cajetan, of Charles
   Miltitz, of Marinus, of Aleander. They all act upon the principle of
   the young king who said, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's
   loins.' As to Aleander, he is a complete maniac,--a bad, foolish man."

   After the Diet of Worms, several events occurred which seemed to
   confirm his worst fears about the effects of the Reformation, and
   imbittered him against its leaders; namely, the disturbances of
   Carlstadt at Wittenberg (1521), Luther's invective against Henry VIII.
   (1522), and the fierce attack of his former friend and admirer Ulrich
   von Hutten (1523). [531]

   Nevertheless, he advised Pope Adrian VI. to avoid all harsh measures,
   to deal gently with errors, to pardon past misdoings, to reform abuses,
   and to call a general council of moderate men. The counsel was
   disregarded.

   Glareanus (Loriti) of Basel described Erasmus very well, when he wrote
   to Zwingli, Jan. 20, 1523, "Erasmus is an old man, and desires rest.
   Each party would like to claim him, but he does not want to belong to
   any party. Neither party is able to draw him. He knows whom to avoid,
   but not whom to attach himself to." Glareanus added, however, that
   Erasmus confessed Christ in his writings, and that he never heard any
   unchristian word from his lips. [532]
     __________________________________________________________________

   [526] "Videor mihi fere omnia docuisse quae docet Lutherus, nisi quod
   non tam atrociter, quodque abstinui a quibusdam aenigmatibus et
   paradoxis." In Zwingli's Opera, ed. Schuler and Schulthess, vol. VII.
   310.

   [527] After the bull of excommunication, it required special permission
   to read the books of the heretic. In a letter to Bombasius, Sept. 23,
   1521, Erasmus says that he begged Jerome Aleander for permission, but
   was denied unless he were to obtain it in express words from the Pope.
   Drummond, II. 85 sq.

   [528] Ems., Epist. 427. See the first letter of Luther (March 28,
   1519), the reply of Erasmus (May 30), and a second letter of Luther
   (April, 1524), and the reply of Erasmus (May 5), in Latin in Er.
   Epist., in German in Walch, vol. XVIII., 1944 sqq., and in the Appendix
   to Müller's Erasmus, pp. 385-395. The two letters of Luther to Erasmus
   are also given in Latin by De Wette, I. 247-249, and II. 498-501.

   [529] See p. 232.

   [530] The edict was passed May 26, 1521, but dated back May 8. (See p.
   318.)

   [531] Erasmus had disowned the poor fugitive Hutten, who turned on him
   like a wild beast in his Expostulatio cum Erasmo, published at
   Strasburg, July, 1523. Erasmus wrote to Pirkheimer, "Emoriar si
   crediturus eram, in universis Germanis esse tantum inhumanitatis,
   impudentiae, vanitatis, virulentiae quantum habet unus libellus
   Hutteni." He answered by Spongia Erasmi adversus Adspergines Ulrici
   Hutteni, Basel, 1523. (Opera, vol. IX. Pars II. 1631-73). Luther
   judged: "I am not pleased with Hutten's attack, but still less with
   Erasmus's reply." The Expostulatio and the Spongia were also translated
   into German. See on this bitter personal controversy, Strauss, Ulrich
   von Hutten, pp. 448-484; and Drummond, II. 120 sqq.

   [532] Opera Zw., VII. 263.
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 73. The Free-will Controversy. 1524-1527.

   See Literature in § 73.

   After halting some time between approval and disapproval, Erasmus found
   it impossible to keep aloof from the irrepressible conflict. Provoked
   by Hutten, and urged by King Henry and English friends, he declared
   open war against Luther, and broke with the Reformation. He did so with
   great reluctance; for he felt that he could not satisfy either party,
   and that he was out of his element in a strictly theological dispute.
   He chose for his attack Luther's doctrine of total depravity.

   Here lay the chief dogmatic difference between the two. Erasmus was an
   admirer of Socrates, Cicero, and Jerome; while Luther was a humble
   pupil of St. Paul and Augustin. Erasmus lacked that profound religious
   experience through which Luther had passed in the convent, and
   sympathized with the anthropology of the Greek fathers and the
   semi-Pelagian school.

   In September, 1524, Erasmus appeared on the field with his work on the
   "Freedom of the Will." It is a defence of freedom as an indispensable
   condition of moral responsibility, without which there can be no
   meaning in precept, repentance, and reward. He maintains essentially
   the old semi-Pelagian theory, but in the mildest form, and more
   negatively than positively; for he wished to avoid the charge of
   heresy. He gives the maximum of glory to God, and a minimum to man. "I
   approve," he says, "of those who ascribe something to free-will, but
   rely most upon grace." We must exert our will to the utmost, but the
   will is ineffective without the grace of God. He urged against Luther
   Christ's call upon Jerusalem to repent (Matt. 23:37), and the will of
   God that no one should perish, but that all should be saved (Ezek.
   33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9). He treated him with respect, but
   charged him with attempting to drive out one extreme by another.

   Luther appreciated the merits of Erasmus, and frankly acknowledged his
   literary superiority. [533] But he knew his weakness, and expressed, as
   early as 1516, the fear that he understood too little of the grace of
   God. [534] He found in his writings more refutation of error than
   demonstration of truth, more love of peace than love of the cross. He
   hated his way of insinuating doubts. On June 20, 1523, he wrote to
   Oecolampadius: [535] "May the Lord strengthen you in your proposed
   explanation of Isaiah [in the University of Basel], although Erasmus,
   as I understand, does not like it .... He has done what he was ordained
   to do: he has introduced the ancient languages, in the place of
   injurious scholastic studies. He will probably die like Moses in the
   land of Moab. He does not lead to better studies which teach piety. I
   would rather he would entirely abstain from explaining and paraphrasing
   the Scriptures, for he is not up to this work .... He has done enough
   to uncover the evil; but to reveal the good and to lead into the land
   of promise, is not his business, in my opinion." In a letter to
   Erasmus, dated April, 1524, a few months before the open breach, he
   proposed to him that they should let each other alone, and apologized
   for his subserviency to the papists, and his want of courage, in a
   manner which could not but wound the sensitive scholar. [536]

   Luther on the Slavery of the Human Will.

   He waited a whole year before he published his reply on the "Slavery of
   the Will" (December, 1525). It is one of his most vigorous and profound
   books, full of grand ideas and shocking exaggerations, that border on
   Manichaeism and fatalism. [537] He thanked Erasmus for going to the
   root of the controversy instead of troubling him "about the papacy,
   purgatory, indulgences, and other fooleries." He inseparably connects
   divine foreknowledge and foreordination, and infers from God's almighty
   power that all things happen by necessity, and that there can be no
   freedom in the creature. [538] He represents the human will as a horse
   or a donkey which goes just as the rider directs it; and that rider is
   the Devil in the state of fallen nature, and God in the state of grace.
   The will has no choice of master; it is God and the Devil who are
   fighting for its possession. The Scripture exhortations to repentance
   and holy living must not be understood seriously, but ironically, as if
   God would say to man: Only try to repent and to do good, and you will
   soon find out that you cannot do it. He deals with man as a mother with
   the child: she invites the child to walk, in order that he may stretch
   out the arm for help. God speaks in this fashion solely to convict us
   of our helplessness, if we do not implore his assistance. Satan said,
   "Thou art free to act." Moses said, "Act," in order to convict us,
   before Satan, of our inability to act.

   In the same book Luther makes a distinction between the Word of God and
   God himself, or between the revealed will of God, which offers
   salvation to all, and the concealed or hidden will, which means to save
   only some, and to leave the rest to deserved perdition. In this way he
   escapes the force of such passages as Ezek. 18:23; 33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4,
   urged by Erasmus, that God does not wish the death but the salvation of
   the sinner (namely, according to his revealed will only). [539] But
   this distinction puts a contradiction in God, which is impossible and
   intolerable.

   If we except the peculiar way of statement and illustration, Luther's
   view is substantially that of St. Augustin, whom Erasmus, with all due
   reverence for the great man, represents as teaching, "God works in us
   good and evil, and crowns his good works in us, and punishes his bad
   works in us." The positive part is unobjectionable: God is the author
   and rewarder of all that is good; but the negative part is the great
   stumbling-block. How can God in justice command us to walk when we are
   lame, and punish us for not walking? The theory presupposes, of course,
   the apostasy and condemnation of the whole human race, on the ground of
   its unconscious or impersonal pre-existence and participation in the
   sin and guilt of Adam.

   All the Reformers were originally Augustinians, that is, believers in
   the total depravity of man's nature, and the absolute sovereignty of
   God's grace. They had, like St. Paul and St. Augustin, passed through a
   terrible conflict with sin, and learned to feel in their hearts, what
   ordinary Christians profess with their lips, that they were justly
   condemned, and saved only by the merits of Christ. They were men of
   intense experience and conviction of their own sinfulness and of God's
   mercifulness; and if they saw others perish in unbelief, it was not
   because they were worse, but because of the inscrutable will of God,
   who gives to some, and withholds from others, the gift of saving faith.
   Those champions of freedom taught the slavery of the will in all things
   pertaining to spiritual righteousness. They drew their moral strength
   from grace alone. They feared God, and nothing else. Their very fear of
   God made them fearless of men. The same may be said of the French
   Huguenots and the English Puritans. Luther stated this theory in
   stronger terms than Augustin or even Calvin; and he never retracted
   it,--as is often asserted,--but even twelve years later he pronounced
   his book against Erasmus one of his very best. [540] Melanchthon, no
   doubt in part under the influence of this controversy, abandoned his
   early predestinarianism as a Stoic error (1535), and adopted the
   synergistic theory. Luther allowed this change without adopting it
   himself, and abstained from further discussion of these mysteries. The
   Formula of Concord re-asserted in the strongest terms Luther's doctrine
   of the slavery of the human will, but weakened his doctrine of
   predestination, and assumed a middle ground between Augustinianism and
   semi-Pelagianism or synergism. [541] In like manner the Roman Catholic
   Church, while retaining the greatest reverence for St. Augustin and
   indorsing his anthropology, never sanctioned his views on total
   depravity and unconditional predestination, but condemned them,
   indirectly, in the Jansenists. [542]

   Final Alienation.

   The Erasmus-Luther controversy led to some further personalities in
   which both parties forgot what they owed to their cause and their own
   dignity. Erasmus wrote a bitter retort, entitled "Hyperaspistes," and
   drove Luther's predestinarian views to fatalistic and immoral
   consequences. He also addressed a letter of complaint to Elector John.
   The outrages of the Peasants' War confirmed him in his apprehensions.
   He was alienated from Melanchthon and Justus Jonas. He gave up
   correspondence with Zwingli, and rather rejoiced in his death. [543] He
   spoke of the Reformation as a tragedy, or rather a comedy which always
   ended in a marriage. He regarded it as a public calamity which brought
   ruin to arts and letters, and anarchy to the Church. [544]

   He was summoned to the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, as a counsellor of the
   Emperor, but declined because he was sick and conscious of his
   inability to please either party. He wrote, however, to Cardinal
   Campeggio, to the bishop of Augsburg, and other friends, to protest
   against settling questions of doctrine by the sword. His remedy for the
   evils of the Church was mutual forbearance and the correction of
   abuses. But his voice was not heeded; the time for compromises and half
   measures had passed, and the controversy took its course. He devoted
   his later years chiefly to the editing of new editions of his Greek
   Testament, and the writings of the church fathers.

   Luther abandoned Erasmus, and abused him as the vainest creature in the
   world, as an enraged viper, a refined Epicurean, a modern Lucian, a
   scoffer, a disguised atheist, and enemy of all religion. [545] We
   gladly return from this gross injustice to his earlier estimate,
   expressed in his letter to Erasmus as late as April, 1524: "The whole
   world must bear witness to your successful cultivation of that
   literature by which we arrive at a true understanding of the
   Scriptures; and this gift of God has been magnificently and wonderfully
   displayed in you, calling for our thanks."
     __________________________________________________________________

   [533] He wrote him a very respectful letter, March 28, 1519, thanking
   him for his great services to the cause of letters, and congratulating
   him for being heartily abused by the enemies of truth and light. Even
   in his book against Erasmus (De Servo Arbitrio), he says at the
   beginning: "Viribus eloquentiae et ingenio me longissime superas." And
   towards the close: "Fateor, tu magnus es et multis iisque nobilissimis
   dotibus a Deo ornatus ... ingenio, eruditione, facundia usque ad
   miraculum. Ego vero nihil habeo et sum, nisi quod Christianum esse me
   glorier."Op. Lat. VII. 367 (Erl. Frcf. ed.).

   [534] See his letters to Lange and Spalatin in De Wette, I. 39 sq., 52;
   87 sq. To Lange he wrote; "Ich fürchte, Erasmus breitet Christum und
   die Gnade Gottes nicht genug aus, von der er gar wenig weiss. Das
   Menschliche gilt mehr bei ihm als das Göttliche."

   [535] De Wette, II. p. 352 sqq.

   [536] In De Wette, II. 498 sq. Erasmus answered, May 5, 1524.

   [537] Köstlin (I. 773) says that it is not surpassed by any work of
   Luther, "for energy and acuteness." But Döllinger and Janssen (II. 379)
   judge that Luther borrowed it from the Koran rather than from the New
   Testament.

   [538] "Ipsa ratione teste nullum potest esse liberum arbitrium in
   homine vel angelo aut ulla creatura."Op. Lat. VII. 366.

   [539] "Multa facit Deus quae verbo suo non ostendit nobis, multa quoque
   vult, quae verbo suo non ostendit sese velle. Sic non vult mortem
   peccatoris, verbo scilicet, vult autem illam voluntate illa
   imperscrutabili." Vol. VII. p. 222. Erl. ed. Op. Lat. The scholastic
   divines made a similar distinction between the voluntas signi and the
   voluntas beneplaciti.

   [540] In 1537 he wrote to Capito, "Nullum agnosco meum justum librum
   nisi forte De Servo Arbitrio et Catechismum." De Wette, V. 70. In the
   Articles of Smalkald he again denied the freedom of the will as a
   scholastic error; and in his last work, the Commentary on Genesis vi:6,
   and xxvi, he reaffirmed the distinction of the secret and revealed will
   of God, which we are unable to harmonize, but for this reason he deems
   it safest to adhere to the revealed will and to avoid speculations on
   the impenetrable mysteries of the hidden will. "Melius et tutius est
   consistere ad praesepe Christi hominis; plurimum enim periculi in eo
   est, si in illos labyrinthos divinitatis te involvas." On Gen. 6:6, in
   the Erl. ed. of Exeg. Opera, II. 170.

   [541] Form. Conc., Art. II. and XI. See Schaff, Creeds of Christendom,
   I. 313 sq.

   [542] Ibid., I. 102 sqq. Among the condemned propositions of Quesnel
   are these: "The grace of Christ is necessary for every good work;
   without it nothing can be done.""The will of man, before conversion by
   prevenient grace, is capable of all evil and incapable of good."

   [543] When he heard of it in 1531, he wrote to a friend, "It is a good
   thing that two of their leaders have perished,--Zwingli on the
   battle-field, and Oecolampadius shortly after of fever and
   abscess."--Op. III. 1422.

   [544] He gives a deplorable picture of the demoralizing effects of the
   Reformation in a letter to Geldenhauer in 1526, Opera X. 1578-1580,
   quoted in full in Latin and German by Döllinger, Die Reformation, I.
   13-15. The Strasburg preachers, Capito, Bucer, and Hedio, tried to
   refute the charges in 1530. Erasmus again came out with the charge,
   among others, that luxury was never greater, nor adulteries more
   frequent, than among the self-styled evangelicals, and appeals in
   confirmation to admissions of Luther, Melanchthon, and Oecolampadius.
   Some of his last letters, discovered and published by Horawitz
   (Erasmiana, 1885, No. IV. p. 44 sqq.), contain similar complaints.

   [545] In his letter to Link, March 7, 1529 (in De Wette, III. 426 sq.),
   he calls Erasmus "atheon, Lucianumque, Epicurum," and in a letter to
   his son John, 1533 (De Wette, IV. 497), he says: "Erasmus, hostis
   omnium religiorum et inimicus singularis Christi, Epicuri Lucianique
   perfectum exemplar et idea." Comp. his judgments in the Tischreden,
   LXI. 93-113 (Erl. ed.).
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 74. Wilibald Pirkheimer.

   Bilibaldi Pirkheimeri Opera politica, historica, philologica, et
   epistolica, ed. by M. Goldast, Francf., 1610, fol. With a portrait by
   A. Dürer. His Encomium Podagrae was translated into English by W. Est,
   The Praise of the Gout, or the Gout's Apology, a paradox both pleasant
   and profitable. Lond., 1617.

   Lampe: Zum Andenken W. P.'s. Nürnberg, 1828. Karl Hagen: Deutschlands
   literarische und relig. Verhältnisse im Ref. Zeitalter. Mit besonderer
   Rücksicht auf Wilibald Pirkheimer. Erlangen, vol. I., 1841, pp. 188
   sqq., 261 sqq., 2d ed. 1868. Döllinger: Reformation, vol. I., 161-174.
   D. F. Strauss: Ulrich von Hutten, 4th ed., Bonn, 1878, pp. 118 sq.;
   227-235; 514-518. Lochner: Lebensläufe berühmter und verdienter
   Nürnberger, Nürnb., 1861. Rud. Hagen: W. P. in seinem Verhältniss zum
   Humanismus und zur Reformation, Nürnberg, 1882. Lic. P. Drews: Wilibald
   Pirkheimer's Stellung zur Reformation, Leipz., 1887 (138 pp.).

   About this time, and after the Peasants' War, the most eminent
   humanists withdrew from the Reformation, and followed Erasmus into the
   sheepfold of the mother church, disgusted with the new religion, but
   without being fully reconciled to the old, and dying at last of a
   broken heart. In this respect, the apprehension of Erasmus was well
   founded; the progress of the Reformation arrested and injured the
   progress of liberal learning, although not permanently. Theology
   triumphed over classical culture, and fierce dogmatic feuds took the
   place of satirical exposures of ignorant monks. But the literary loss
   was compensated by a religious gain. In the judgment of Luther, truth
   proved mightier than eloquence, faith stronger than learning, and the
   foolishness of God wiser than the wisdom of men. [546]

   Among the pupils, friends and admirers of Erasmus, who were first
   attracted and then repelled by the Reformation, are Wilibald
   Pirkheimer, Crotus Rubeanus, Mutianus Rufus, Ulrich Zasius, Vitus
   Amerpach, Georg Wizel, Jacob Strauss, Johann Wildenauer (Egranus),
   Johann Haner, Heinrich Loriti Glareanus, and Theobald Billicanus. [547]

   Wilibald Pirkheimer (1470-1530), the most distinguished and influential
   of them, was descended from an ancient, rich, and noble family of
   Nürnberg, and received a liberal military and diplomatic education. He
   spent seven years in Italy (1490-1497), and became a leader in the
   Renaissance. He occupied also a high social position as senator of
   Nürnberg and imperial counsellor. He was honored by important
   diplomatic missions, and fulfilled them with great ability. He was not
   an original genius, but the most learned and most eloquent layman in
   Germany. He mastered philology, jurisprudence, geography, astronomy,
   music, painting, botany, and all the discoveries and sciences of the
   time. He collected a rare library of books and manuscripts and a
   cabinet of coins, and gave free access to visitors. He translated
   writings of Xenophon, Plato, Plutarch, Euclid, Ptolemy, Lucian, Gregory
   Nazianzen, and Nilus, into Latin. [548] He was called "the Nürnberg
   Xenophon," for his account of the rather inglorious Swiss campaign
   (1499) in which he took part as an officer. [549] He carried on an
   extensive correspondence with the leading humanists, especially
   Reuchlin, Ulrich von Hutten, and Erasmus, and also with the Reformers,
   Melanchthon, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, and Luther. He was the Maecenas of
   Germany, and a gentleman of striking and commanding presence, social
   culture, charming manners, and princely liberality. [550] He constantly
   entertained distinguished strangers at his hospitable board. Nürnberg
   was then the first German city in politics, industry, and commerce. He
   made it also a centre of literature and illumination. At Venice there
   was a proverb:, All German cities are blind, except Nürnberg, which has
   one eye."

   Pirkheimer hailed the beginnings of the Reformation with patriotic and
   literary enthusiasm, invited Luther to his house when he returned
   utterly exhausted from Augsburg in 1518, distributed his books, and,
   with his friends Albrecht Dürer and Lazarus Spengler, prepared the way
   for the victory of the new ideas in his native city. He wrote an
   apology of Reuchlin in his controversy with the Dominicans, contributed
   probably to the "Letters of Obscure Men," and ridiculed Dr. Eck in a
   satirical, pseudonymous dialogue, after the Leipzig disputation. [551]
   Eck took cruel revenge when he published the Pope's bull of
   excommunication, by naming Pirkheimer among the followers of Luther,
   and warning him through the magistrate of Nürnberg. Luther burnt the
   Pope's bull; but Pirkheimer helped himself out of the difficulty by an
   evasive diplomatic disclaimer, and at last begged absolution.

   This conduct is characteristic of the humanists. They would not break
   with the authorities of the church, and had not the courage of martyrs.
   They employed against existing abuses the light weapons of ridicule and
   satire rather than serious argument and moral indignation. They had
   little sympathy with the theology and piety of the Reformers, and
   therefore drew back when the Reformers, for conscience' sake, broke
   with the old church, and were cast out of her bosom as the Apostles
   were cast out of the synagogue.

   In a letter to Erasmus, dated Sept. 1, 1524, Pirkheimer speaks still
   favorably of Luther, though regretting his excesses, and deprecates a
   breach between the two as the greatest calamity that could befall the
   cause of sound learning. But soon after the free-will controversy, and
   under the influence of Erasmus, he wrote a very violent book against
   his former friend Oecolampadius, in defence of consubstantiation (he
   did not go as far as transubstantiation). [552]

   The distractions among Protestants, the Anabaptist disturbances, the
   Peasants' War, the conduct of the contentious Osiander, sickness, and
   family afflictions increased his alienation from the Reformation, and
   clouded his last years. The stone and the gout, of which he suffered
   much, confined him at home. Dürer, his daily companion (who, however,
   differed from him on the eucharistic question, and strongly leaned to
   the Swiss view), died in 1528. Two of his sisters, and two of his
   daughters, took the veil in the nunnery of St. Clara at Nürnberg. His
   sister Charitas, who is famous for her Greek and Latin correspondence
   with Erasmus and other luminaries, was abbess. The nunnery suffered
   much from the disturbances of the Reformation and the Peasants' War.
   When it was to be secularized and abolished, he addressed to the
   Protestant magistrate an eloquent and touching plea in behalf of the
   nuns, and conclusively refuted the charges made against them. The
   convent was treated with some toleration, and survived till 1590.

   His last letters, like those of Erasmus, breathe discontent with the
   times, lament over the decline of letters and good morals, and make the
   evangelical clergy responsible for the same evils which he formerly
   charged upon the Roman clergy and monks. "I hoped," he wrote to Zasius
   (1527), a distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Freiburg, who
   likewise stood halting between Rome and Wittenberg,--"I hoped for
   spiritual liberty; but, instead of it, we have carnal license, and
   things have gotten much worse than before." Zasius was of the same
   opinion, [553] and Protestants of Nürnberg admitted the fact of the
   extensive abuse of the gospel liberty. [554] In a letter to his friend
   Leib, prior of Rebdorf, written a year before his death, Pirkheimer
   disclaims all fellowship with Luther, and expresses the opinion that
   the Reformer had become either insane, or possessed by an evil spirit.
   [555] But, on the other hand, he remained on good terms with
   Melanchthon, and entertained him on his way to the Diet of Augsburg in
   1530.

   His apparent inconsistency is due to a change of the times rather than
   to a change of his conviction. Like Erasmus, he remained a humanist,
   who hoped for a reformation from a revival of letters rather than
   theology and religion, and therefore hailed the beginning, but lamented
   the progress, of the Lutheran movement. [556]

   Broken by disease, affliction, and disappointment, he died in the year
   of the Augsburg Confession, Dec. 22, 1530, praying for the prosperity
   of the fatherland and the peace of the church. He left unfinished an
   edition of Ptolemy's Geography, which Erasmus published with a preface.
   Shortly before his death, Erasmus had given him an unfavorable account
   of the introduction of the Reformation in Basel and of his intention to
   leave the city.

   Pirkheimer made no permanent impression, and his writings are
   antiquated; but, as one of the most prominent humanists and connecting
   links between the mediaeval and the modern ages, he deserves a place in
   the history of the Reformation.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [546] See his letter to Caspar Börner, professor of literature in
   Leipzig, May 28, 1522, in De Wette, II. 199-201. The letter was
   intended also for Erasmus, and printed under the title, "Judicium D. M.
   Lutheri de Erasmo Roterodamo. Epistola ad amicum 1522." He says that he
   would not provoke Erasmus, but was not afraid of his attack.

   [547] Döllinger gives, from the R. Catholic standpoint, a full account
   of these scholars in the first volume of his work on the Reformation
   (Regensburg, 1846). On Wizel we have an interesting university program
   of Neander: Commentatio de Georgio Vicelio. Berlin, 1840. Strauss
   notices several of them from the rationalistic standpoint, in his
   Ulrich von Hutten.

   [548] On his literary labors, see Karl Hagen, l.c., I. 280 sqq.

   [549] He tells in his narrative the following anecdote of a brave and
   quick-witted Swiss maiden. When asked by the imperial soldiers, "What
   are the Swiss guards doing on their post?" she replied, "Waiting for
   you to attack them." -- "How strong is their number?" -- "Strong enough
   to throw you all back." -- " But how strong?" -- "You might have
   counted them in the recent fight, but fright and flight made you
   blind." --" What do they live of?" -- "Of eating and drinking." The
   soldiers laughed, but one drew his sword to kill her. "Verily," she
   said, "you are a brave man to threaten an unarmed girl. Go and attack
   yonder guard, who can answer you with deeds instead of words." Comp.
   Münch, W. P.'s Schweizerkrieg und Ehrenhandel. Basel, 1826. Drews,
   l.c., p. 10.

   [550] Unfortunately his moral character was not free from blemish. He
   became a widower in 1504, and lived in illicit intercourse with his
   servant, who bore him a son when he was already past fifty. Christoph
   Scheurl wrote: "I wish Melanchthon knew Pirkheimer better: he would
   then be more sparing in his praise. With the most he is in bad repute."
   See K. Hagen, l.c., I. 347, and Drews, l.c., 14 sq.

   [551] Eccius dedolatus (Der abgehobelte Eck). Auctore Ioanne Francisco
   Cottalambergio, Poëta Laureato. 1520. See p. 182.

   [552] Bilibaldi Birckheimheri de vera Christi carne et vero ejus
   sanguine, ad Ioan. Oecolampadium responsio. Norembergae, 1526.
   Bilibaldi Pirckheymeri de vera Christi carne, etc., reponsio secunda.
   1527. I give the titles, with the inconsistencies of spelling from
   original copies in the Union Theol. Seminary. Pirkheimer calls
   Oecolampadius (his Greek name for Hausschein, House-lamp)
   "Coecolampadius" (Blindschein, Blind-lamp), and deals with him very
   roughly. Drews (pp. 89-110) gives a full account of this unprofitable
   controversy.

   [553] Comp. Döllinger, Die Reform. i. 174-182.

   [554] Hans Sachs (in his Gespräch eines evang. Christen mit einem
   katholischen, Nürnberg, 1524) warns the Nürnbergers against their
   excesses of intemperance, unchastity, uncharitableness, by which they
   brought the Lutheran doctrine into contempt. Döllinger, l.c., I. 174
   sqq., quotes testimonies to the same effect from Konrad Wickner and
   Lazarus Spengler, both prominent Protestants in Nürnberg, and from
   contemporaries in other parts of Germany.

   [555] Döllinger, I. p. 533 sq., gives this letter in Latin and German,
   and infers from it that Pirkheimer died a member of the Catholic
   Church.

   [556] This is substantially also the judgment of Drews, his most recent
   biographer, who says (l.c., p. 123): "Pirkheimer ist jeder Zeit
   Humanist geblieben ... In der Theorie war er ein Anhänger der neuen,
   gewaltigen Bewegung; aber als dieselbe anfing praktisch zu werden,
   erschrak er vor den Gährungen, die unvermeidlich waren. Der Humanist
   sah die schönen Wissenschaften bedroht; der Patrizier erschrak vor der
   Übermacht des Volkes; der Staatsmann erzitterte, als er den Bruch mit
   den alten Verhältnissen als eine Notwendigkeit fühlte. Nur ein religiös
   fest gegründeter Glaube war im Stande, über diesen Kämpfen den Sieg und
   den Frieden zu sehen. Daran aber fehlte es gerade Pirkheimer; alles
   theologische Interesse vermag dieses persönliche religiöse Leben nicht
   zu ersetzen. Wohl besass er ein lebendiges Rechtsgefühl, einen
   ethischen Idealismus, aber es fehlte ihm die Kraft, im eignen Leben
   denselben zu verwirk-lichen. Ihm war das Leben ein heiteres Spiel,
   solange die Tage sonnenhell waren; als sie sich umdüsterten, wollten
   sich die Wolken weder hinwegscherzen, noch hinwegschmähen lassen. Ein
   religiös, sittlicher Charakter war Pirkheimer nicht, 'Vivitur ingenio,
   caetera mortis erunt,' diese Worte hat er unter sein von Dürer
   gezeichnetes Bild (1524) gesetzt. Sie enthalten das Glaubensbekenntnis
   Pirkheimers, das Geheimnis seines Lebens."
     __________________________________________________________________

   § 75. The Peasants' War. 1523-1525.

   I. Luther: Ermahnung zum Frieden auf die zwölf Artikel der Bauernschaft
   in Schwaben (1525); Wider die mörderischen und raüberischen Rotten der
   Bauern (1525); Ein Sendbrief von dem harten Büchlein wider die Bauern
   (1525). Walch, Vols. XVI. and XXI. Erl. ed., XXIV. 257-318.
   Melanchthon: Historic Thomae Münzers (1525), in Walch, XVI. 204 sqq.
   Cochlæus (Rom. Cath.), in his writings against Luther.

   II. Histories of the Peasants' War, by Sartorius (Geschichte des
   deutschen Bauernkriegs, Berlin, 1795); Wachsmuth (Leipzig. 1834);
   Oechsle (Heilbronn, 1830 anti 1844); Bensen (Erlangen, 1840);
   Zimmermann (Stuttgart, 1841, second edition 1856, 3 Vols.); Jörg
   (Freiburg, 1851); Schreiber (Freiburg, 1863-66, 3 vols.); Stern
   (Leipzig, 1868); Baumann (Tübingen, 1876-78); L. Fries, ed. by
   Schäffler and Henner (Würzburg, 1876, 1877); Hartfelder (Stuttgart,
   1884).

   III. Monographs on Thomas Münzer by Strobel (Leben, Schriften und
   Lehren Thomae Müntzers, Nürnberg and Altdorf, 1795); Gebser (1831);
   Streif (1835); Seidemann (Dresden, 1842); Leo (1856); Erbkam (in
   Herzog2, Vol. X. 365 sqq.).

   IV. Ranke: II. 124-150. Janssen: II. 393-582. Häusser: ch. VII. Weber:
   Weltgesch., vol. X. 229-273 (second edition, 1886).

   The ecclesiastical radicalism at Wittenberg was the prelude of a more
   dangerous political and social radicalism, which involved a large
   portion of Germany in confusion and blood. Both movements had their
   roots in crying abuses; both received a strong impetus from the
   Reformation, and pretended to carry out its principles to their
   legitimate consequences; but both were ultra- and pseudo-Protestant,
   fanatical, and revolutionary.

   Carlstadt and Münzer are the connecting links between the two
   movements, chiefly the latter. Carlstadt never went so far as Münzer,
   and afterwards retraced his steps. Their expulsion from Saxony extended
   their influence over Middle and Southern Germany. [557]

   Condition of the Peasants.

   The German peasants were the beasts of burden for society, and in no
   better condition than slaves. Work, work, work, without reward, was
   their daily lot, even Sunday hardly excepted. They were ground down by
   taxation, legal and illegal. The rapid increase of wealth, luxury, and
   pleasure, after the discovery of America, made their condition only
   worse. The knights and nobles screwed them more cruelly than before,
   that they might increase their revenues and means of indulgence.

   The peasants formed, in self-protection, secret leagues among
   themselves: as the "Käsebröder" (Cheese-Brothers), in the Netherlands;
   and the "Bundschuh," [558] in South Germany. These leagues served the
   same purpose as the labor unions of mechanics in our days.

   Long before the Reformation revolutionary outbreaks took place in
   various parts of Germany,--a.d. 1476, 1492, 1493, 1502, 1513, and
   especially in 1514, against the lawless tyranny of Duke Ulrich of
   Würtemberg. But these rebellions were put down by brute force, and
   ended in disastrous failure. [559]

   In England a communistic insurrection of the peasants and villeins
   occurred in 1381, under the lead of Wat Tyler and John Balle, in
   connection with a misunderstanding of Wiclif's doctrines.

   The Reformation, with its attacks upon the papal tyranny, its
   proclamation of the supremacy of the Bible, of Christian freedom, and
   the general priesthood of the laity, gave fresh impulse and new
   direction to the rebellious disposition. Traveling preachers and
   fugitive tracts stirred up discontent. The peasants mistook spiritual
   liberty for carnal license. They appealed to the Bible and to Dr.
   Luther in support of their grievances. They looked exclusively at the
   democratic element in the New Testament, and turned it against the
   oppressive rule of the Romish hierarchy and the feudal aristocracy.
   They identified their cause with the restoration of pure Christianity.

   Thomas Münzer.

   Thomas Münzer, one of the Zwickau Prophets, and an eloquent demagogue,
   was the apostle and travelling evangelist of the social revolution, and
   a forerunner of modern socialism, communism, and anarchism. He presents
   a remarkable compound of the discordant elements of radicalism and
   mysticism. He was born at Stolberg in the Harz Mountain (1590); studied
   theology at Leipzig; embraced some of the doctrines of the Reformation,
   and preached them in the chief church at Zwickau; but carried them to
   excess, and was deposed.

   After the failure of the revolution in Wittenberg, in which he took
   part, he labored as pastor at Altstädt (1523), for the realization of
   his wild ideas, in direct opposition to Luther, whom he hated worse
   than the Pope. Luther wrote against the "Satan of Altstädt." Münzer was
   removed, but continued his agitation in Mühlhausen, a free city in
   Thuringia, in Nürnberg, Basel, and again in Mühlhausen (1525).

   He was at enmity with the whole existing order of society, and imagined
   himself the divinely inspired prophet of a new dispensation, a sort of
   communistic millennium, in which there should be no priests, no
   princes, no nobles, and no private property, but complete democratic
   equality. He inflamed the people in fiery harangues from the pulpit,
   and in printed tracts to open rebellion against their spiritual and
   secular rulers. He signed himself "Münzer with the hammer," and "with
   the sword of Gideon." He advised the killing of all the ungodly. They
   had no right to live. Christ brought the sword, not peace upon earth.
   "Look not," he said, "on the sorrow of the ungodly; let not your sword
   grow cold from blood; strike hard upon the anvil of Nimrod [the
   princes]; cast his tower to the ground, because the day is yours."

   The Program of the Peasants.

   At the beginning of the uprising, the Swabian peasants issued a program
   of their demands, a sort of political and religious creed, consisting
   of twelve articles. [560]

   Professing to claim nothing inconsistent with Christianity as a
   religion of justice, peace, and charity, the peasants claim: 1. The
   right to elect their own pastors (conceded by Zwingli, but not by
   Luther). 2. Freedom from the small tithe (the great tithe of grain they
   were willing to pay). 3. The abolition of bond-service, since all men
   were redeemed by the blood of Christ (but they promised to obey the
   elected rulers ordained by God, in every thing reasonable and
   Christian). 4. Freedom to hunt and fish. 5. A share in the forests for
   domestic fuel. 6. Restriction of compulsory service. 7. Payment for
   extra labor above what the contract requires. 8. Reduction of rents. 9.
   Cessation of arbitrary punishments. 10. Restoration of the pastures and
   fields which have been taken from the communes. 11. Abolition of the
   right of heriot, by which widows and orphans are deprived of their
   inheritance. 12. All these demands shall be tested by Scripture; and if
   not found to agree with it, they are to be withdrawn.

   These demands are moderate and reasonable, especially freedom from
   feudal oppression, and the primitive right to elect a pastor. Most of
   them have since been satisfied. Had they been granted in 1524, Germany
   might have been spared the calamity of bloodshed, and entered upon a
   career of prosperity. But the rulers and the peasants were alike blind
   to their best interests, and consulted their passion instead of reason.
   The peasants did not stick to their own program, split up in parties,
   and resorted to brutal violence against their masters. Another program
   appeared, which aimed at a democratic reconstruction of church and
   state in Germany. Had Charles V. not been taken up with foreign
   schemes, he might have utilized the commotion for the unification and
   consolidation of Germany in the interest of an imperial despotism and
   Romanism. But this would have been a still greater calamity than the
   division of Germany.

   Progress of the Insurrection.

   The insurrection broke out in summer, 1524, in Swabia, on the Upper
   Danube, and the Upper Rhine along the Swiss frontier, but not on the
   Swiss side, where the peasantry were free. In 1525 it extended
   gradually all over South-Western and Central Germany. The rebels
   destroyed the palaces of the bishops, the castles of the nobility,
   burned convents and libraries, and committed other outrages. Erasmus
   wrote to Polydore Virgil, from Basel, in the autumn of 1525: "Every day
   there are bloody conflicts between the nobles and the peasants, so near
   us that we can hear the firing, and almost the groans of the wounded."
   In another letter he says: "Every day priests are imprisoned, tortured,
   hanged, decapitated, or burnt."

   At first the revolution was successful. Princes, nobles, and cities
   were forced to submit to the peasants. If the middle classes, which
   were the chief supporters of Protestant doctrines, had taken sides with
   the peasants, they would have become irresistible.

   But the leader of the Reformation threw the whole weight of his name
   against the revolution.

   Luther advises a wholesale Suppression of the Rebellion.

   The fate of the peasantry depended upon Luther. Himself the son of a
   peasant, he had, at first, considerable sympathy with their cause, and
   advocated the removal of their grievances; but he was always opposed to
   the use of force, except by the civil magistrate, to whom the sword was
   given by God for the punishment of evil-doers. He thought that
   revolution was wrong in itself, and contrary to Divine order; that it
   was the worst enemy of reformation, and increased the evil complained
   of. He trusted in the almighty power of preaching, teaching, and moral
   suasion. In the battle of words he allowed himself every license; but
   there he stopped. With the heroic courage of a warrior in the spiritual
   army of God, he combined the humble obedience of a monk to the civil
   authority.

   He replied to the Twelve Articles of the Swabian peasants with an
   exhortation to peace (May, 1525). He admitted that most of them were
   just. He rebuked the princes and nobles, especially the bishops, for
   their oppression of the poor people and their hostility to the gospel,
   and urged them to grant some of the petitions, lest a fire should be
   kindled all over Germany which no one could extinguish. But he also
   warned the peasants against revolution, and reminded them of the duty
   of obedience to the ruling powers (Rom. 13:1), and of the passage, that
   "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matt. 26:52).
   He advised both parties to submit the quarrel to a committee of
   arbitration. But it was too late; he preached to deaf ears.

   When the dark cloud of war rose up all over Germany, and obscured the
   pure light of the Reformation, Luther dipped his pen in blood, and
   burst out in a most violent manifesto "against the rapacious and
   murderous peasants." He charged them with doing the Devil's work under
   pretence of the gospel. [561] He called upon the magistrates to "stab,
   kill, and strangle" them like mad dogs. He who dies in defence of the
   government dies a blessed death, and is a true martyr before God. A
   pious Christian should rather suffer a hundred deaths than yield a hair
   of the demands of the peasants. [562]

   So fierce were Luther's words, that he had to defend himself in a
   public letter to the chancellor of Mansfeld (June or July, 1525). He
   did not, however, retract his position. "My little book," he said,
   "shall stand, though the whole world should stumble at it." He repeated
   the most offensive passages, even in stronger language, and declared
   that it was useless to reason with rebels, except by the fist and the
   sword. [563]

   Cruel as this conduct appears to every friend of the poor peasants, it
   would he unjust to regard it as an accommodation, and to derive it from
   selfish considerations. It was his sincere conviction of duty to the
   magistrate in temporal matters, and to the cause of the Reformation
   which was threatened with destruction.

   Defeat of the Rebellion.

   The advice of the Reformer was only too well executed by the
   exasperated princes, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, who now made
   common cause against the common foe. The peasants, badly armed, poorly
   led, and divided among themselves, were utterly defeated by the troops
   of the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, Duke Henry of Brunswick, the Elector
   Jolin, and the Dukes George and John of Saxony. In the decisive battle
   at Frankenhausen, May 25, 1525, five thousand slain lay on the field
   and in the streets; three hundred were beheaded before the court-house.
   Münzer fled, but was taken prisoner, tortured, and executed. The
   peasants in South Germany, in the Alsace and Lorraine, met with the
   same defeat by the imperial troops and the forces of the electors of
   the Palatinate and Treves, and by treachery. In the castle of Zabern,
   in the Alsace (May 17), eighteen thousand peasants fell. In the Tyrol
   and Salzburg, the rebellion lasted longest, and was put down in part by
   arbitration.

   The number of victims of war far exceeded a hundred thousand. [564] The
   surviving rebels were beheaded or mutilated. Their widows and orphans
   were left destitute. Over a thousand castles and convents lay in ashes,
   hundreds of villages were burnt to the ground, the cattle killed,
   agricultural implements destroyed, and whole districts turned into a
   wilderness. "Never," said Luther, after the end of the war, "has the
   aspect of Germany been more deplorable than now." [565]

   The Peasants' War was a complete failure, and the victory of the
   princes an inglorious revenge. The reaction made their condition worse
   than ever. Very few masters had sufficient humanity and self-denial to
   loosen the reins. Most of them followed the maxim of Rehoboam: "My
   father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with
   scorpions" (1 Kings 12:14). The real grievances remained, and the
   prospect of a remedy was put off to an indefinite future.

   The cause of the Reformation suffered irreparable injury, and was made
   responsible by the Romanists, and even by Erasmus, for all the horrors
   of the rebellion. The split of the nation was widened; the defeated
   peasantry in Roman Catholic districts were forced back into the old
   church; quiet citizens lost their interest in politics and social
   reform; every attempt in that direction was frowned down with
   suspicion. Luther had once for all committed himself against every kind
   of revolution, and in favor of passive obedience to the civil rulers
   who gladly accepted it, and appealed again and again to Rom. 13:1, as
   the popes to Matt. 16:18, as if they contained the whole
   Scripture-teaching on obedience to authority. Melanchthon and Bucer
   fully agreed with Luther on this point; and the Lutheran Church has
   ever since been strictly conservative in politics, and indifferent to
   the progress of civil liberty. It is only in the nineteenth century
   that serfdom has been entirely abolished in Germany and Russia, and
   negro slavery in America.

   The defeat of the Peasants' War marks the end of the destructive
   tendencies of the Reformation, and the beginning of the construction of
   a new church on the ruins of the old.
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   [557] Ranke (II. 126): "Dass Münzer und Karlstadt, und zwar nicht ohne
   Zuthun Luthers, endlich aus Sachsen entfernt wurden, trug zur
   Ausbreitung und Verstärkung dieser Bewegung ungemein bei. Sie wandten
   sich beide nach Oberdeutschland." Ranke attributes too much influence
   to Carlstadt's false doctrine of the Lord's Supper, which he published
   after his expulsion.

   [558] So called from the tied shoe which the peasants wore as a symbol
   of subjection, in contrast to the buckled shoe of the upper classes.

   [559] On the connection of the earlier peasants' insurrections with the
   movements preparatory to the Reformation, compare Ullmann's essay on
   Hans Böheim of Niklashausen, in his Reformatoren vor der Reformation,
   vol. I. 419-446.

   [560] They are given In German by Walch, Strobel, Oechsle, Gieseler,
   Weber. The authorship is uncertain. It is ascribed to Christoph
   Schappeler, a native Swiss, and preacher at Memmingen; but also to
   Heuglin of Lindau, Habmeier, and Münzer. See the note of Ranke, II.
   135.

   [561] Kurzum, eitel Teufelswerk treiben sie, und insonderheit ists der
   Erzteufel, der zu Mühlhausen regiert [Münzer],und nichts denn Raub,
   Mord, Blutvergiessen anricht, wie denn Christus von ihm sagt, Joh.
   8:44, dass er sei ein Mörder von Anbeginn."Erl. ed., XXIV. 288.

   [562]  "Darum, lieben Herren, löset hie, rettet hie, erbarmet euch der
   armen Leute [i.e., not the peasants, but the poor people deluded by
   them]; steche, schlage, würge hie wer da kann. Bleibst du darüber todt:
   wohl dir, seliglicheren Tod kannst du nimmermehr überkommen. Denn du
   stirbst im Gehorsam göttlichs Worts und Befehls, Rom. 13:1." ... "So
   bitte ich nun, fliche von den Bauern wer da kann, als vom Teufel
   selbst."Ibid., xxiv. 294. In his explanatory tract, p. 307, this
   passage is repeated more strongly."Der halsstarrigen, verstockten,
   verblendeten Bauern erbarme sich nur niemand, sondern haue, steche,
   würge, schlage drein, als unter die tollen Hunde, wer da kann und wie
   er kann. Und das alles, auf dass man sich derjenigen erbarme, die durch
   solche Bauern verderbt, verjagt und verführt werden, dass man Fried und
   Sicherheit erhalte."

   [563] Ibid., 298, 303, 307. See preceding note.

   [564] Bishop Georg of Speier estimated the number of the killed at a
   hundred and fifty thousand. This does not include those who were made
   prisoners, beheaded, and hanged, or dreadfully mutilated. A hangman in
   the district of Würzburg boasted that he had executed by the sword
   three hundred and fifty in one month. Margrave George of Brandenburg
   had to remind his brother Casimir, that, unless he spared some
   peasants, they would have nothing to live on. Janssen, II. 563.

   [565] Letter of Aug. 16, 1525, to Brismann (in De Wette, III. 22):
   "Rusticorum res quievit ubique, caesis ad centum millia, tot orphanis
   factis, reliquis vero in vita sic spoliatis, ut Germaniae facies
   miserior nunquam fuerit. Ita saeviunt victores, ut impleant suas
   iniquitates."
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   CHAPTER V.

   THE INNER DEVELOPMENT OF THE REFORMATION FROM THE PEASANTS' WAR TO THE
   DIET OF AUGSBURG, a.d. 1525-1530.
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   § 76. The Three Electors.

   G. Spalatin: Friedrich d. Weise, Lebensgeschichte, ed. by Neudecker and
   Preller, Jena, 1851. Tutzschmann: Fr. d. W., Grimma, 1848. Ranke, vol.
   II. Kolde: Friedrich der Weise und die Anfänge der Reformation,
   Erlangen, 1881. Köstlin in the Studien u. Kritiken, 1882, p. 700,
   (vers. Kolde). Comp. §§ 26 and 61.

   Shortly before the close of the Peasants' War, Frederick III., surnamed
   the Wise, Elector of Saxony (1486-1525), died peacefully as he had
   lived, in his sixty-third year, May 5, 1525. His last hours at the
   castle of Lochau form a striking contrast with the stormy and bloody
   scenes around him. He hoped that the common people would not prevail,
   but admitted that they had reason to complain of harsh treatment. "Dear
   children," he said to his servants, "if I have wronged any one of you,
   I beg you to forgive me for God's sake; we princes do many naughty
   things to the poor people." Shortly before his death, he partook of the
   holy communion in both kinds. This is the only distinct Protestant act
   in his life. His body was removed to Wittenberg, and buried in the
   castle church at which Luther had posted his Ninety-Five Theses.
   Melanchthon delivered a Latin oration; Luther wrote letters of
   condolence to his brother and nephew, who succeeded him, and praised
   his wisdom, his kindness to his subjects, his love of justice and
   hatred of falsehood.