PART II

LUTHER AS MONK AND PROFESSOR, UNTIL HIS ENTRY ON THE WAR OF REFORMATION.1505-1517.

I

AT THE CONTENT AT ERFURT, TILL 1508.

Luther's resolve to follow a monastic life was arrived at suddenly, as we have seen. But he weighed that resolve well in his mind, and just as carefully considered the choice of the convent which he entered.

The Augustinian monks, whose society he announced his intention to join, belonged at that time to the most important monastic order in Germany. So much had already been said with justice, in the way of complaint and ridicule, of the depravation of monastic life, its idleness, hypocrisy, and gross immorality, that many of them fancied that the solemn renunciation of marriage and the world's goods, and the absolute submission of their wills to the commands of their superiors and the regulations of their Order, constituted true service to God, and raised them to a peculiar position of holiness and merit. Outward discipline, at all events, was universally insisted on. Among the German institutions of this Order, whilst neglect and depravity had crept in elsewhere, a large number had, for some time past, distinguished themselves by a strict adherence to their old statutes, originating, it was supposed, from their founder St. Augustine, but relating, at the best, to mere matters of form. These institutions formed themselves into an association, presided over by a Vicar of the Order, as he was called, a Vicar-General for Germany. To this association belonged the convent at Erfurt. Its inmates were treated with marked favour and respect by the higher and educated classes in the town. They were said to be active in preaching and in the care of souls, and to cultivate among themselves the study of theology. Arnoldi, Luther's teacher, belonged to this convent. As the Order possessed no property, but all its members lived on alms, the monks went about the town and country to collect gifts of money, bread, cheese, and other victuals.

According to the rules of the Order, applications for admission were not granted at once, but time was taken to see whether the applicant was in earnest. After that he was received as a novice for at least a year of probation. Until that year expired he was at liberty to reconsider his wish.

Luther, before taking this final step, thought of his parents, with a view to lay before them his resolve. The monastic brethren, however, endeavoured to dissuade him, by reminding him how one must leave father and mother for Christ and His Cross, and how no one who has put his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Upon his writing to his father on the subject, the latter, strong in the conviction of his paternal rights, flew into a passion with his son. 'My father,' says Luther later, 'was near going mad about it; he was ill satisfied, and would not allow it. He sent me an answer in writing, addressing me in terms that showed his displeasure, and renouncing all further affection. Soon after he lost two of his sons by the plague. This epidemic had likewise broken out so violently at Erfurt, that about harvesttime whole crowds of students fled with their teachers from the town, and Luther's father received news that his son Martin had also fallen a victim. His friends then urged him that, if the report proved false, he ought at least to devote his dearest to God, by letting this son who still remained to him, enter the blessed Order of God's servants. At last the father let himself be talked over; but he yielded, as Luther informs us, with a sad and reluctant heart.

The young novice was welcomed among his brethren with hymns of joy, and prayers, and other ceremonies. He was soon clothed in the garb of his Order. Over a white woollen shirt he was made to wear a frock and cowl of black cloth, with a black leathern girdle. Whenever he put these on or off a Latin prayer was repeated to him aloud, that the Lord might put off the old and put on the new man, fashioned according to God. Above the cowl he received a scapulary, as it was called—in other words, a narrow strip of cloth hanging over shoulders, breast, and back, and reaching down to his feet. This was meant to signify that he took upon him the yoke of Him who said, 'My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.' At the same time, he was handed over to a superior, appointed to take charge of the novices, to introduce them to the practices of monastic devotion, to superintend their conduct, and to watch over their souls.

Above all, it was held important that the monks should be taught to subdue their own wills. They had to learn to endure, without opposition, whatever was imposed upon them, and that, indeed, all the more cheerfully, the more distasteful it appeared. Any tendency to pride was overcome by enjoining immediately the most menial offices on the offender. Friends of Luther tell us how, during his first period of probation in particular, he had to perform the meanest daily labour with brush and broom, and how his jealous brethren took particular pleasure in seeing the proud young graduate of yesterday trudge through the streets, with his beggar's wallet on his back, by the side of another monk more accustomed to the work. At first, we are told, the university interceded on his behalf as a member of their own body, and obtained for him at least some relaxation from his menial duties. From Luther's own lips, in after life, we hear not a word of complaint about any special vexations and burdens. As far as was possible, he did not allow them to daunt him; nay, he longed for even severer exercises, to enable him to win the favour of God. Even as a Reformer he remembered with gratitude the 'Pedagogue,' or superintendent of his noviciate; he was a fine old man, he tells us, a true Christian under that execrable cowl.

The novice found each day, as it went by, fully occupied with the repetition of set prayers and the performance of other acts of devotion. For the day and night together there were seven or eight appointed hours of prayer, or Horae. During each of these the brethren who were not yet priests had to say twenty-five Paternosters with the Ave Maria, more ample formulas of prayer being prescribed meanwhile to the priests. Luther was also introduced already then to certain theological studies, which were under the supervision of two learned fathers of the monastery. But what was of the most importance for him was that a Bible—the Latin translation then in general use in the Church—was put into his hands. Just about this time, a new code of statutes had come in force for these Augustinian convents, drawn up by Staupitz, the Vicar of the Order, which enjoined, as matters of duty, assiduous reading, devout attention to the Hours, and a zealous study of Holy Writ. Teachers were wanting to Luther, and he found it very difficult to understand all he read. But with genuine appetite he read himself, so to speak, into his Bible, and clung to it ever afterwards.

At the end of his year of probation followed his solemn admission to the Order. Faithfully 'unto death' did Luther then promise to live according to the rules of the holy father Augustine, and to render obedience to Almighty God, to the Virgin Mary, and to the prior of the monastery. Before doing so, he put on anew the dress of his Order, which had been consecrated with holy water and incense. The prior received his vows and sprinkled holy water upon him as he prostrated himself upon the ground in the form of a cross. When the ceremony was over, his brethren congratulated him on being now like an innocent child fresh from the baptism. He was then given a cell of his own, with table, bedstead, and chair. It looked out upon the cloistered yard of the monastery. It was destroyed by a fire on March 7, 1872.

Luther now, by an inviolable promise, had bound himself to that vocation through which he aspired to gain heaven. The means whereby he hoped to realise his aspiration were abundantly provided for him in his new home. If he sought the favour of the Virgin and of other saints who should intercede for him before the judgment-seat of God and Christ, he found at once in his Order a fervent worship of the Virgin in particular, and all possible directions for her service. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which Pius IX., in our own days, first ventured to raise into a dogma of the Church, was zealously defended by the Augustinians, and firmly maintained by Luther himself, even after the beginning of his war of Reformation. John Palz, one of his two theological teachers in the convent, wrote profusely in honour of this doctrine, and described all Christians as its spiritual children. Under its mantle, says Luther, he had to creep into the presence of Christ. From the multitude of other saints Luther selected a number as his constant helpers in need. We notice particularly that among these, in addition to St. Anne and St. George, was the Apostle Thomas; from him who himself had once betrayed such cowardice and want of faith he might well hope for peculiar sympathy. We have already mentioned the set prayers which filled up a great portion of the day. He was required above all things to learn and repeat them accurately, word by word. Afterwards, as he tells us, the Horae were read aloud after the manner of magpies, jackdaws, or parrots.

If he wished in penitence to be freed from the sins which had tormented him so long, and were a daily burden on his conscience, the means of confession provided by the Church were always ready for him in the convent. Once a week, at the least, every brother had to attend the private confessional. All his sins, without exception, had then to be revealed, if he wished to obtain for them forgiveness. Luther endeavoured to unbosom to his father-confessor all he had done from his youth up; but this was too much even for the priest. It was by means of a complete inward contrition, corresponding to the infinite burden of sin, that the person confessing was to make himself worthy of the forgiveness which the priest then testified to him by absolution. According to the prevailing doctrine, however, what was wanting to the penitent in completeness of contrition, was supplied by the Sacrament of Absolution. But the punishments reserved by God for sinners were not supposed to be ended by this absolution or forgiveness; these had to be atoned for by peculiar observances, imposed by the priest, and by prayer, alms, fasting, and other acts of mortification. For him who was not forgiven, remained hell; for him who had not expiated his sins, at least the fear and pains of purgatory. Such was and still is the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Thus Luther was now summoned and directed to pursue methodically the painful work of self-examination, which had oppressed him even before he entered the convent, and to use all the means of grace here offered to him. But the more he searched into his life and thoughts, the more transgressions of God's will he found, and the more grievously did they afflict his conscience. It was not, indeed, as might have been imagined with a strong young man like himself, a question of any sensual appetites, stimulated all the more by the restraints of the convent. It was with the passions of anger, hatred, and envy against his brethren and fellow-creatures, that he had to reproach himself. Those who disliked him accused him in particular of self-conceit, and of letting his temper break out too easily. Faults of that description, in thought, word, or deed, were to his own conscience as deadly sins, though to the priest who listened to him at confession, they seemed too trifling to call for enumeration. To these were added a number of smaller offences against the ordinances of the Church and the convent, with reference to outward observances and forms of worship, prayers, and so on, all of which, insignificant as they must seem to us, the Church was accustomed to treat as grievous sins. Finally, there arose in his mind a constant restlessness, which made him look for sins where none in reality existed. What he had said once before about washing one's hands, that it only made them become fouler, he had now to experience for himself. His contrition made him feel pain and fear in abundance, but not so as to enable him to say to himself that it purged the evil in the sight of God. Absolution was pronounced over him again and again, but who ever gave him any assurance that he had fulfilled its conditions, and therefore could really confide in its efficacy? As for acts of penance, he willingly performed them, and, indeed, did far more in the way of prayer, fasting, and vigil than either the rules of the convent demanded or his father-confessor enjoined. His body, from his hardy training as a child, was well prepared for such austerities, but in spite of that, he had for a long while to suffer from their results. Luther, in later years, could well bear witness of himself that he had caused his own body far more pain and torture with those practices of penance than all his enemies and persecutors had caused to theirs.

What leisure remained, after his other monastic duties were over, he devoted most industriously to the study of theology. He read, in particular, the writings of the later Scholastic theologians, with whom he had partly occupied himself during his philosophical course. Of some of these, such as the Englishman Occam, in particular, whose acuteness of reasoning he especially admired, there were writings which, in reference to questions of external Church polity, might have led him even then into paths of his own, if his mind had been disposed for it. These writings were directed against the absolute power of the Pope in the Church, and against his aggressions in the territory of Empire and State. But any such aim was very far removed from the monastic Order to which Luther had devoted himself, and from the theologians who were here his teachers. Palz, whom we have mentioned already, had especially distinguished himself by his glorification of the Papal indulgences. Moreover, the whole Order, and the German convents belonging to it in particular, were indebted to the Pope for various acts of favour. Nor was Luther himself less careful to hold firmly to the ordinances of the hierarchy, than to avail himself of the means of salvation offered by the Church.

What at all times in his theological studies enlisted his warmest personal interest was the difficult question, how sinners could obtain everlasting salvation. And all that he came to read on that subject in the writings of those theologians, and to hear from his learned teachers in the convent, served only to increase his fruitless inward wrestlings, and his anxiety and sense of need. The great father of the Church, from whom his Order was named, and to whom their rules were ascribed, had once, on the ground of his own experiences of the struggle with sin and the flesh, laid down with great force, and in a triumphant controversy with his opponents, the doctrine that, as the Apostle says, salvation depends not on the conduct of man, but on the grace of God, not on the will of man, but on the willingness of God to pardon, Who alone transforms the sinner, and grants him the power and the will for good. But any knowledge or understanding of this theology of Augustine was as strange to his own Order as to the Scholastics. It was taught, indeed, that heaven was too high for man to attain to otherwise than by the grace of God. But it was also taught that the sinner, by his own natural strength, both could and ought to do enough in God's sight to earn that grace which would then help him further on the way to heaven. He who had thus obtained that grace, it was said, felt himself enabled and impelled to do even more than God's commands require. Reference to the bitter passion and death of the Saviour was not omitted, it is true, by the theologians with whom Luther had to do, and frequently, as, for example, by his teacher Palz, was impressed on Christian hearts in words full of feeling. But the chief stress was laid, not on the redeeming love on which man could rest his confident assurance, but on the necessity of offering oneself to Him who had offered Himself for man, and of submitting even to the pains of death, in imitation of Him, and to pay the penalty of sin. In this way, again and again, Luther saw before him claims on the part of God which he could never hope to satisfy. His sorest trial was caused by the thought that God Himself should have the will to let him fail after all his fruitless efforts, and finally be numbered with the lost. And it was just with the later Scholastics that he found, not indeed a theory according to which God had simply predestined a part of mankind to perdition, but a general conception of God which would represent Him as a Being not so much of holy love, as of arbitrary, absolute will.

Luther spent two years in the convent amidst these strivings and inward sufferings. His spiritual life, as it was called, of strict discipline and asceticism was quoted in other convents as a model for imitation. Now and then, indeed, he felt himself puffed up with a sense of superior sanctity—'a proud saint,' as he afterwards called himself. But humility was the ruling temper of his mind. Frequently, in after life, he described his condition as a warning to others. Thus he speaks of the disciples of the law, who try by their own works, by constant labour, by wearing shirts of hair, by self-scourging, by fasting, by every means, in short, to satisfy the law. Such a one, he tells us, he himself had been. But he had also learned by experience, he adds, what happens when a man is tempted, and death or danger frightens him; how he despairs, nay, would fly from God as from the devil, and would rather that there were no God at all. So great became his inward sufferings, that he thought both body and soul must succumb. Thus he tells us later on, when speaking of the torments of purgatory, of a man, who doubtless was himself, how he had often endured such agony, only momentary it is true, but so hellish in its violence, that no tongue could express nor pen describe it; that, had it lasted longer, even for half an hour, or only five minutes, he must have died then and there, and his bones have been consumed to ashes. He himself saw afterwards in these pains, visitations of a special kind, such as God does not send to everyone. But they served him then as a proof, and one of universal application, that that school of the law, as he called it, would bring no real holiness either to others or himself, but must teach a man to despair of himself and of any claims or merits of his own. And, indeed, as we know from all that had gone before, it was not simply the external barrenness of the regulations of Church and convent, or a sense of imperfect fulfilment on his part, that caused his restlessness of conscience; what gave him the deepest anxiety and harassed him the most were those very inward stirrings, which revealed to him his opposition to God's eternal demands, the fulfilment of which he thought indispensable for reconciliation to God.

His experiences at the convent led him to the perception of those principles which formed the groundwork of his preaching as a Reformer. From his exemplary conduct there, and his wonderful and active conversion, he was compared to St. Paul. In quite another sense he resembled the great Apostle. The latter, when a Pharisee, had laboured to justify himself before God by the law and the prophets. 'O wretched man that I am,' Luther there must have exclaimed of himself, and afterwards looking back on his experiences, have counted all as 'dung and loss' in order to be justified rather by faith through the grace of God and the Saviour, and to become free and holy.

Just as, meanwhile, inside the Catholic Church, the laws, dogmas, and School theories relating to the means of salvation, were never able to supplant entirely the thought of the simple testimony of the Bible, and of the Church's own confession of God's forgiving love and His redeeming and absolving grace, or to prevent simple, pious Christians from seeking here a refuge in the inmost depths of their hearts, so now, at this very convent of Erfurt, where Luther's inward development in those theories and dogmas had reached so high a pitch, he received also the first serious impressions in the other direction. They found with him a difficult and gradual entrance, from the energy and consistency with which he had taken up his original standpoint. But with all the more energy, and with perfect consistency, did he abandon that standpoint, when new light dawned upon him from his new conception of the truth.

Luther's teacher at the convent, by whom we shall have to understand the superintendent of the novices, had already made a deep impression upon him, by reminding him of the words of the Apostles' Creed about the forgiveness of sins, and representing to him, what Luther had never ventured to apply to himself, that the Lord himself had commanded us to hope. For this he referred him to a passage in the writings of St. Bernard, where that fervent preacher, imbued though he was in his theology with the Church notions of the middle ages, insists on the importance of this very faith in God's forgiveness, and appeals to the words of St. Paul that man is justified by grace through faith. Remarks of this kind sank into Luther's mind, and took root there, though their fruit only ripened by degrees. Of his teacher Arnoldi, also, he spoke with admiration and gratitude, for the comfort he had known how to impart to him.

But the one who at this time acquired by far the most potent, wholesome, and lasting influence upon Luther, was the Vicar-General, John von Staupitz. He was a remarkable man, of a noble and pious disposition, and a refined and far-seeing mind. A master of the forms of Scholastic theology, he was also deeply read in Scripture; he made its teachings the special standard of his life, and was careful to enjoin others to do the same. He strove after an inward, practical life in God, not confined to mere forms and observances. Sharp conflicts and controversies were not to his taste; but mildly and discreetly he sought to plant, in his own field of work, and to leave what he had planted in God's name to grow up.

It was during his visits to Erfurt that Staupitz came in contact with the gifted, thoughtful, and melancholy young monk. He treated Luther, both in conversation and letter, with fatherly confidence, and Luther unlocked to him, as to a father, his heart and its cares. Upon his wishing to confess to him all his many small sins, Staupitz insisted first on distinguishing between what were really sins, and what were not; as for self-imagined sins, or such a patchwork of offences as Luther laid before him, he would not listen to them; that was not the kind of seriousness, he would say, that God wished to have. Luther tormented himself with a system of penance, consisting of actual pain, punishments, and expiations. Staupitz taught him that repentance, in the Scriptural meaning, was an inward change and conversion, which must proceed from the love of holiness and of God; and that, for peace with God, he must not look to his own good resolutions to lead a better life, which he had not the strength to carry out, or to his own acts, which could never satisfy the law of God, but must trust with patience to God's forgiving mercy, and learn to see in Christ, whom God permitted to suffer for the sins of man, not the threatening Judge, but rather the loving Saviour. To Christ above all he referred him, when Luther pondered on the secret eternal will of God, and was near despair. God's eternal purpose, he would say, shines clearly in the wounds of Christ. Did his temptations not cease, he bade him see in them means to draw him to the love of God. The thoughts of Staupitz turned in this on the temptations to pride, which might themselves be the means of curing that pride, and on the great things for which God wished to prepare him. In a simple, practical manner, and from the experiences of his own life, he would thus counsel and converse with Luther. During the long course of a confidential intercourse with his friend, his own theology in later years became visibly developed, and his pupil of earlier days became afterwards his teacher. But Luther, both then and throughout his life, spoke of him with grateful affection as his spiritual father, and thanked God that he had been helped out of his temptations by Dr. Staupitz, without whom he would have been swallowed up in them and perished.

The first firm ground, however, for his convictions and his inner life, and the foundation for all his later teachings and works, was found by Luther in his own persevering study of Holy Writ. In this also he was encouraged by Staupitz, who must, however, have been amazed at his indefatigable industry and zeal. For the interpretation of the Bible the means at his command were meagre in the extreme. He himself explored in all cases to their very centre the truths of Christian salvation and the highest questions of moral and religious life. A single passage of importance would occupy his thoughts for days. Significant words, which he was not able yet to comprehend, remained fixed in his mind, and he carried them silently about with him. Thus it was, for example, as he tells us, with the text in Ezekiel, 'I will not the death of a sinner,' a passage which engrossed his earnest thoughts.

It was the third and last year of his monastic life at Erfurt that brought with it, as far as we see, the decisive turn for his inward struggles and labours.

In his second year, on May 2, 1507, he received, by command of his superiors, his solemn ordination as a priest. It was then for the first time since his entry into the convent against his father's will, that the latter saw him again. A convenient day was expressly arranged for him, to enable him to take part personally at the solemnity. He rode into Erfurt with a stately train of friends and relations. But in his opinion of the step taken by his son he remained unalterably firm. At the entertainment which was given in the convent to the young priest, the latter tried to extort from him a friendly remark upon the subject, by asking him why he seemed so angry, when monastic life was such a high and holy thing. His father replied in the presence of all the company, 'Learned brothers, have you not read in Holy Writ, that a man must honour father and mother?' And on being reminded how his son had been called, nay, compelled to this new life by heaven, 'Would to God,' he answered, 'it were no spirit of the devil!' He let them understand that he was there, eating and drinking, as a matter of duty, but that he would much rather be away.

To Luther, however, the post of high dignity to which he was now promoted brought new fear and anxiety. He had now to appear before God as a priest; to have Christ's Body, the very Christ Himself, and God actually present before him at the mass on the altar; to offer the Body of Christ as a sacrifice to the living and eternal God. Added to this, there were a multitude of forms to observe, any oversight wherein was a sin. All this so overpowered him at his first mass, that he could scarcely remain at the altar; he was well-nigh, as he said afterwards, a dead man.

With these priestly functions he united an assiduous devotion to his saints. By reading mass every morning, he invoked twenty-one particular saints, whom he had chosen as his helpers, taking three at a time, so as to include them all within the week.

As regards the most important problems of life, his study of the Scriptures gradually revealed to him the light which determined his future convictions. The path had already been pointed out to him by the words of St. Paul quoted by St. Bernard. When looking back, at the close of his life, on this his inward development, he tells us how perplexed he had been by what St. Paul said of the 'righteousness of God' (Rom. i. 17). For a long time he troubled himself about the expression, connecting it as he did, according to the ruling theology of the day, with God's righteousness in His punishment of sinners. Day and night he pondered over the meaning and context of the Apostle's words. But at length, he adds, God in His great mercy revealed to him that what St. Paul and the gospel proclaimed was a righteousness given freely to us by the grace of God, Who forgives those who have faith in His message of mercy, and justifies them, and gives them eternal life. Therewith the gate of heaven was opened to him, and thenceforth the whole remaining purport of God's word became clearly revealed. Still it was only by degrees, during the latter portion of his stay at Erfurt, and even after that, that he arrived at this full perception of the truth.

After their ordination the monks received the title of fathers. Luther was not as yet relieved of the duty of going out with a brother in quest of alms. But he was soon employed in the more important business of the Order, as, for instance, in transactions with a high official of the Archbishop, in which he displayed great zeal for the priesthood and for his Order.

With the Scholastic theology of his time, albeit even now in a path marked out by himself, his keen understanding and happy memory had enabled him to become thoroughly familiar. He was scarcely twenty-five years old when Staupitz, occupied with making provision for the newly-founded university of Wittenberg, recognised in him the right man for a professorial chair.