PART III

THE BREACH WITH ROME, UP TO THE DIET OF WORMS. 1517-21.

I

THE NINETY-FIVE THESES.

The first occasion for the struggle which led to the great division in the Christian world was given by that magnificent edifice of ecclesiastical splendour intended by the popes as the creation of the new Italian art; by the building, in a word, of St. Peter's Church, which had already been commenced when Luther was at Rome. Indulgences were to furnish the necessary means. Julius II. had now been succeeded on the Papal chair by Leo X. So far as concerned the encouragement of the various arts, the revival of ancient learning, and the opening up, by that means, to the cultivated and upper classes of society of a spring of rich intellectual enjoyment, Leo would have been just the man for the new age. But whilst actively engaged in these pursuits and pleasures, he remained indifferent to the care and the spiritual welfare of his flock, whom as Christ's vicar he had undertaken to feed. The frivolous tone of morals that ruled at the Papal see was looked upon as an element of the new culture. As regards the Christian faith, a blasphemous saying is reported of Leo, how profitable had been the fable of Christ. He had no scruples in procuring money for the new church, which, as he said, was to protect and glorify the bones of the holy Apostles, by a dirty traffic, pernicious to the soul. Meanwhile, the popes were not ashamed to appropriate freely to their own needs that indulgence money, which was nominally for the Church and for other objects, such as the war against the Turks.

In order to appreciate the nature of these indulgences and of Luther's attack upon them, it is necessary first to realise more exactly the significance which the teachers of the Church ascribed to them. The simple statement that absolution or forgiveness of sins was sold for money, must in itself be offence enough to any moral Christian conscience; and we can only wonder that Luther proceeded so prudently and gradually towards his object of getting rid of indulgences altogether. But the arguments by which they were explained and justified did not sound so simple or concise.

Forgiveness of sins, it was maintained, must be gained by penance, namely, by the so-called sacrament of penance, including the acts of private confession and priestly absolution. In this the father-confessor promised to him who had confessed his sins, absolution for them, whereby his guilt was forgiven and he was freed from eternal punishment. A certain contrition of the heart was required from him, even if only imperfect, and proceeding perhaps solely from the fear of punishment, but which nevertheless was deemed sufficient, its imperfection being supplied by the sacrament. But though absolved, he had still to discharge heavy burdens of temporal punishment, penances imposed by the Church, and chastisements which, in the remission of eternal punishment, God in His righteousness still laid upon him. If he failed to satisfy these penances in this life, he must, even if no longer in danger of hell, atone for the rest in the torments of the fire of purgatory. The indulgence now came in to relieve him. The Church was content with easier tasks, as, at that time, with a donation to the sacred edifice at Rome. And even this was made to rest on a certain basis of right. The Church, it was said, had to dispose of a treasure of merits which Christ and the saints, by their good works, had accumulated before the righteous God, and those riches were now to be so disposed of by Christ's representatives, that they should benefit the buyer of indulgences. In this manner penances which otherwise would have to be endured for years were commuted into small donations of money, quickly paid off. The contrition required for the forgiveness of sins was not altogether ignored; as, for instance, in the official announcements of indulgences, and in the letters or certificates granting indulgences to individuals in return for payment. But in those documents, as also in the sermons exhorting the multitude to purchase, the chief stress, so far as possible, was laid upon the payment. The confession, and with it the contrition, was also mentioned, but nothing was said about the personal remission of sins depending on this rather than on the money. Perfect forgiveness of sins was announced to him who, after having confessed and felt contrition, had thrown his contribution into the box. For the souls in purgatory nothing was required but money offered for them by the living. 'The moment the money tinkles in the box, the soul springs up out of purgatory.' A special tariff was arranged for the commission of particular sins, as, for example, six ducats for adultery.

The traffic in indulgences for the building of St. Peter's was delegated by commission from the Pope, over a large part of Germany, to Albert, Archbishop of Mayence and Magdeburg. We shall meet with this great prince of the Church, as now in connection with the origin of the Reformation, so during its subsequent course. Albert, the brother of the Elector of Brandenburg, and cousin of the Grand-Master of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, stood in 1517, though only twenty-seven years old, already at the head of those two great ecclesiastical provinces of Germany; Wittenberg also belonged to his Magdeburg diocese. Raised to such an eminence and so rapidly by good fortune, he was filled with ambitious thoughts. He troubled himself little about theology. He loved to shine as the friend of the new Humanistic learning, especially of an Erasmus, and as patron of the fine arts, particularly of architecture, and to keep a court the splendour of which might correspond with his own dignity and love of art. For this his means were inadequate, especially as, on entering upon his Archbishopric of Mayence, he had had to pay, as was customary, a heavy sum to the Pope for the pallium given for the occasion. For this he had been forced to borrow thirty thousand gulden from the house of Fugger at Augsburg, and he found his aspirations incessantly crippled by want of money and by debts. He succeeded at last in striking a bargain with the Pope, by which he was allowed to keep half of the profits arising from the sale of indulgences, in order to repay the Fuggers their loan. Behind the preacher of indulgences, who announced God's mercy to the paying believers, stood the agents of that commercial house, who collected their share for their principals. The Dominican monk, John Tetzel, a profligate man, whom the Archbishop had appointed his sub-commissioner, drove the largest trade in this business with an audacity and a power of popular declamation well suited to his work.

Contemporaries have described the lofty and well-ordered pomp with which such a commissioner entered on the performance of his exalted duties. Priests, monks, and magistrates, schoolmasters and scholars, men, women, and children, went forth in procession to meet him, with songs and ringing of bells, with flags and torches. They entered the church together amidst the pealing of the organ. In the middle of the church, before the altar, was erected a large red cross, hung with a silken banner which bore the Papal arms. Before the cross was placed a large iron chest to receive the money; specimens of these chests are still shown in many places. Daily, by sermons, hymns, processions round the cross, and other means of attraction, the people were invited and urged to embrace this incomparable offer of salvation. It was arranged that auricular confession should be taken wholesale. The main object was the payment, in return for which the 'contrite' sinners received a letter of indulgence from the commissioner, who, with a significant reference to the absolute power granted to himself, promised them complete absolution and the good opinion of their fellow-men.

We have evidence to show how Tetzel preached himself, and what he wished these sermons on indulgences to be like. Calling upon the people, he summoned all, and especially the great sinners, such as murderers and robbers, to turn to their God and receive the medicine which God, in his mercy and wisdom, had provided for their benefit. St. Stephen once had given up his body to be stoned, St. Lawrence his to be roasted, St. Bartholomew his to a fearful death. Would they not willingly sacrifice a little gift in order to obtain everlasting life? Of the souls in purgatory it was said, 'They, your parents and relatives, are crying out to you, “We are in the bitterest torments, you could deliver us by giving a small alms, and yet you will not. We have given you birth, nourished you, and left to you our temporal goods; and such is your cruelty that you, who might so easily make us free, leave us here to lie in the flames.”'

To all who directly or indirectly, in public or in private, should in any way depreciate, or murmur against, or obstruct these indulgences, it was announced that, by Papal edict, they lay already by so doing under the ban of excommunication, and could only be absolved by the Pope or by one of his commissioners.

After Luther had once ventured to attack openly this sale of indulgences, it was admitted even by their defenders and the violent enemies of the Reformer, that in those days 'greedy commissioners, monks and priests, had preached unblushingly about indulgences, and had laid more stress upon the money than upon confession, repentance, and sorrow.' Christian people were shocked and scandalised at the abuse. It was asked whether indeed God so loved the money, that for the sake of a few pence He would leave a soul in everlasting torments, or why the Pope did not out of love empty the whole of purgatory, since he was willing to free innumerable souls in return for such a trifle as a contribution to the building of a church. But not one of them found it then expedient to incur the abuse and slander of a Tetzel by a word spoken openly against the gross misconduct the fruits of which were so important to the Pope and the Archbishop.

Tetzel now came to the borders of the Elector of Saxony's dominion, and to the neighbourhood of Wittenberg. The Elector would not allow him to enter his territory, on account of so much money being taken away, and accordingly he opened his trade at Juterbok. Among those who confessed to Luther, there were some who appealed to letters of indulgence which they had purchased from him there.

In a sermon preached as early as the summer of 1516, Luther had warned his congregation against trusting to indulgences, and he did not conceal his aversion to the system, whilst admitting his doubts and ignorance as to some important questions on the subject. He knew that these opinions and objections would grieve the heart of his sovereign; for Frederick, who with all his sincere piety, still shared the exaggerated veneration of the middle ages for relics, and had formed a rich collection of them in the Church of the Castle and Convent at Wittenberg, which he was always endeavouring to enrich, rejoiced at the Pope's lavish offer of indulgences to all who at an annual exhibition of these sacred treasures should pay their devotions at the nineteen altars of this church. A few years before he had caused a 'Book of Relics' to be printed, which enumerated upwards of five thousand different specimens, and showed how they represented half a million days of indulgence. Luther relates how he had incurred the Elector's displeasure by a sermon preached in his Castle Church against indulgences: he preached, however, again before the exhibition held in February 1517. The honour and interest, moreover, of his university had to be considered, for that church was attached to it, the professors were also dignitaries of the convent, and the university benefited by the revenues of the foundation.

Luther was then, as he afterwards described himself, a young doctor of divinity, ardent, and fresh from the forge. He was burning to protest against the scandal. But as yet he restrained himself and kept quiet. He wrote, indeed, on the subject to some of the bishops. Some listened to him graciously; others laughed at him; none wished to take any steps in the matter.

He longed now to make known to theologians and ecclesiastics generally his thoughts about indulgences, his own principles, his own opinions and doubts, to excite public discussion on the subject, and to awake and maintain the fray. This he did by the ninety-five Latin theses or propositions which he posted on the doors of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517, the eve of All Saints' Day and of the anniversary of the consecration of the Church.

These theses were intended as a challenge for disputation. Such public disputations were then very common at the universities and among theologians, and they were meant to serve as means not only of exercising learned thought, but of elucidating the truth. Luther headed his theses as follows:—

'Disputation to explain the virtue of indulgences.-In charity and in the endeavour to bring the truth to light, a disputation on the following propositions will be held at Wittenberg, presided over by the Reverend Father Martin Luther.... Those who are unable to attend personally may discuss the question with us by letter. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.'

It was in accordance with the general custom of that time that, on the occasion of a high festival, particular acts and announcements, and likewise disputations at a university, were arranged, and the doors of a collegiate church were used for posting such notices.

The contents of these theses show that their author really had such a disputation in view. He was resolved to defend with all his might certain fundamental truths to which he firmly adhered. Some points he considered still within the region of dispute; it was his wish and object to make these clear to himself by arguing about them with others.

Recognising the connection between the system of indulgences and the view of penance entertained by the Church, he starts with considering the nature of true Christian repentance; but he would have this understood in the sense and spirit taught by Christ and the Scriptures, as, indeed, Staupitz had first taught it to him. He begins with the thesis 'Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He says Repent, desires that the whole life of the believer should be one of repentance.' He means, as the subsequent theses express it, that true inward repentance, that sorrow for sin and hatred of one's own sinful self, from which must proceed good works and mortification of the sinful flesh. The Pope could only remit his sin to the penitent so far as to declare that God had forgiven it.

Thus then the theses expressly declare that God forgives no man his sin without making him submit himself in humility to the priest who represents Him, and that He recognises the punishments enjoined by the Church in her outward sacrament of penance. But Luther's leading principles are consistently opposed to the customary announcements of indulgences by the Church. The Pope, he holds, can only grant indulgences for what the Pope and the law of the Church have imposed; nay, the Pope himself means absolution from these obligations only, when he promises absolution from all punishment. And it is only the living against whom those punishments are directed which the Church's discipline of penance enjoins: nothing, according to her own laws, can be imposed upon those in another world.

Further on, Luther declares, 'When true repentance is awakened in a man, full absolution from punishment and sin comes to him without any letters of indulgence.' At the same time he says that such a man would willingly undergo self-imposed chastisement, nay, he would even seek and love it.

Still, it is not the indulgences themselves, if understood in the right sense, that he wishes to be attacked, but the loose babble of those who sold them. Blessed, he says, be he who protests against this, but cursed be he who speaks against the truth of apostolic indulgences. He finds it difficult, however, to praise these to the people, and at the same time to teach them the true repentance of the heart. He would have them even taught that a Christian would do better by giving money to the poor than by spending it in buying indulgences, and that he who allows a poor man near him to starve draws down on himself, not indulgences, but the wrath of God. In sharp and scornful language he denounces the iniquitous trader in indulgences, and gives the Pope credit for the same abhorrence for the traffic that he felt himself. Christians must be told, he says, that if the Pope only knew of it, he would rather see St. Peter's Church in ashes, than have it built with the flesh and bones of his sheep.

Agreeably with what the preceding theses had said about the true penitent's earnestness and willingness to suffer, and the temptation offered to a mere carnal sense of security, Luther concludes as follows: 'Away therefore with all those prophets who say to Christ's people “Peace, peace!” when there is no peace, but welcome to all those who bid them seek the Cross of Christ, not the Cross which bears the Papal arms. Christians must be admonished to follow Christ their Master through torture, death, and hell, and thus through much tribulation, rather than by a carnal feeling of false security, hope to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Catholics objected to this doctrine of salvation advanced by Luther, that by trusting to God's free mercy and by undervaluing good works, it led to moral indolence. But on the contrary, it was to the very unbending moral earnestness of a Christian conscience, which, indignant at the temptations offered to moral frivolity, to a deceitful feeling of ease in respect to sin and guilt, and to a contempt of the fruits of true morality, rebelled against the false value attached to this indulgence money, that these Theses, the germ, so to speak, of the Reformation, owed their origin and prosecution. With the same earnestness he now for the first time publicly attacked the ecclesiastical power of the Papacy, in so far namely as, in his conviction, it invaded the territory reserved to Himself by the Heavenly Lord and Judge. This was what the Pope and his theologians and ecclesiastics could least of all endure.

On the same day that these theses were published, Luther sent a copy of them with a letter to the Archbishop Albert, his 'revered and gracious Lord and Shepherd in Christ.' After a humble introduction, he begged him most earnestly to prevent the scandalising and iniquitous harangues with which his agents hawked about their indulgences, and reminded him that he would have to give an account of the souls entrusted to his episcopal care.

The next day he addressed himself to the people from the pulpit, in a sermon he had to preach on the festival of All Saints. After exhorting them to seek their salvation in God and Christ alone, and to let the consecration by the Church become a real consecration of the heart, he went on to tell them plainly, with regard to indulgences, that he could only absolve from duties imposed by the Church, and that they dare not rely on him for more, nor delay on his account the duties of true repentance.