The Pictures of German Life Throughout History. Gustav Freytag

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СКАЧАТЬ greatest interest of Luther and the people was truth; here, therefore, their paths separated.

      Thus Luther entered into the struggle, full of faith, still a true son of the Church, and with all the German devotedness to authority; but yet his firm connection with his God worked in him strongly against this authority. He was then thirty-four years of age, in the full vigour of his strength, of middle size, thin, but strongly made, so that he appeared tall by the side of the small delicate boyish figure of Melancthon. Fiery eyes, whose intense brilliancy was almost overpowering, glowed in a face in which one could perceive the effects of night watches and inward struggles. Though a man of great repute, not only in his order, but in the university, he was no great scholar; he first began to learn Greek with Melancthon, and soon afterwards Hebrew; he possessed no great compass of book learning, and never had any ambition to shine as a Latin poet. But he was astonishingly well read in the Holy Scriptures and some of the Fathers, and whatever he took up he worked out profoundly. He was unwearied in his care for the souls of his congregation, a zealous preacher, and a warm friend; he had a certain frank gaiety, together with a self-possessed demeanour, and much courteous tact; the certainty of his convictions appeared in his social intercourse, and gave a cheerful radiance to his countenance. He was irritable, and easily moved to tears; the trifling events of the day excited and disturbed him; but when he was called upon for any great effort, and had subdued the first agitation of his nerves--which, for instance, had overcome him on his first entrance at the Imperial Diet at Worms--he then attained a wonderful composure and confidence. He did not know what fear was; indeed, his lion nature took pleasure in the most dangerous situations. The malicious snares of his enemies, and the dangers to which his life was occasionally exposed, he seemed to consider hardly worth speaking about. The foundation of this more than human heroism--if one may venture to call it so--was the firm personal union between him and his God. For a long period, with smiles and inward gladness, he desired to serve truth and God by becoming a martyr. A fearful struggle still lay before him, but it was not caused by the opposition of men; he had to contend constantly for years against the devil himself; he overcame also the terror of hell, which threatened to obscure his reason. Such a man might be destroyed, but could hardly be conquered.

      The period of struggle which now follows, from the beginning of the dispute about indulgences to his departure from Wartburg, the time of his greatest triumph and greatest popularity, is that of which perhaps most is known, and yet it appears to us that his character even then is not rightly judged.

      Nothing in this period is more remarkable than the way in which Luther gradually became estranged from the Romish Church. He was sober-minded and without ambition, and clung with deep reverence to the high idea of the Church, that community of believers fifteen hundred years old; yet in four short years he departed from the faith of his fathers, and shook himself free of the soil in which he had been so firmly rooted. During this whole time he had to maintain the struggle alone, or at least with very few faithful confederates: after 1518 Melancthon was united with him. He overcame all the dangers of fierce encounters, not only against enemies, but against the anxious dissuasions of honest friends and patrons. Three times did the Romish party try to silence him by the authority of Cajetan, the persuasive eloquence of Miltitz, and the unseasonable assiduity of the pugnacious Eckius; three times he addressed the Pope in letters which are among the most valuable documents of that century. Then came the separation: he was anathematized and excommunicated; he burnt--according to the old university custom--the enemy's challenge, and with it the possibility of return. With joyful confidence he went to Worms, where the princes of his nation were to decide whether he should die, or henceforth live amongst them, without Pope or Church, by the precepts of the Holy Scriptures alone.

      When first he published in print the "Theses against Tetzel," he was astounded at the prodigious effect they produced in Germany, at the venomous hatred of his enemies, and at the tokens of friendly approbation which he received from all sides. Had he done anything so very unprecedented? The opinions he expressed were entertained by all the best men in the Church. When the Bishop of Brandenburg sent the Abbot of Lehnin to him, with a request that he would withdraw from the press his German sermon upon indulgences and grace, however right its contents might be, the poor Augustine friar was deeply moved that so great a man should hold such friendly and cordial intercourse with him, and he felt inclined to give up the publication rather than make himself a lion disturbing the Church. He zealously endeavoured to refute the report that the Elector had induced him to engage in the dispute with Tetzel. "They wish to involve the innocent Prince in the odium that belongs to me only." He desired as much as possible to preserve peace with Miltitz before Cajetan; only one thing he would not do: he would not retract what he had said against the unchristian sale of indulgences. But this retraction was the only thing that the hierarchy required of him. Long did he continue to wish for peace, reconciliation, and a return to the peaceful occupations of his cell; but some false assertion of his opponents always reinflamed his blood, and every contradiction was followed by a new and sharper stroke of his weapons.

      The heroic confidence of Luther is striking; even in his first letter to Leo X., dated the 30th May, 1518, he is still the faithful son of the Church; he still concludes by laying himself at the feet of the Pope; offers him his whole life and being, and promises to respect his voice as the voice of Christ, whose representative he is as sovereign of the Church. But in the midst of all this submission, which became him as a monastic brother, these impassioned words burst forth: "If I have deserved death, I do not refuse to die." And in the letter itself, how strong are the expressions with which he describes the insolence of the indulgence vendors! Honest, too, are his expressions of surprise at the effect of his Theses, which were difficult to understand, being, according to the old custom, composed of enigmatical and involved propositions. Good humour pervades the manly words, "What shall I do? I cannot retract. I am only an unlearned man, of narrow capacity, not highly cultivated, in a century full of intellect and taste, which might even put Cicero into a corner. But necessity has no law; the goose must cackle among the swans."

      The following year all who esteemed Luther endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation. Staupitz, Spalatinus, and the Elector scolded, entreated, and urged. Even the Pope's chamberlain, Miltitz, praised his opinions, whispered to him that he was quite right, entreated, drank with, and kissed him; though Luther indeed had reason to believe that the courtier had a secret commission to take him if possible a prisoner to Rome. The mediators happily hit on a point in which the refractory man heartily agreed with them; it was, that respect for the Church must be maintained and its unity not destroyed; Luther therefore promised to keep quiet and to leave the disputed points to the decision of three eminent bishops. Under these circumstances he was pressed to write a letter of apology to the Pope; but this letter of the 3rd of March, 1519, though undoubtedly approved by the mediators and wrung from the writer, shows the advance that Luther had already made. Of the humility which our theologians discover in it, there is little; it is, however, thoroughly cautious and diplomatic in its style. Luther regrets that what he has done to defend the honour of the Romish Church has been attributed to him as a want of respect; he promises henceforth to be silent on the subject of indulgences,--provided his opponents would be the same, and to address a letter to the people admonishing them loyally to obey the Church,^[28] and not estrange themselves from it, because his opponents had been insolent and he himself harsh. But all these submissive words could not conceal the chasm which already separated his spirit from that of the Romish Church. With what cold irony he writes: "What shall I do, most holy father? All counsel fails me; I cannot bear your anger, and yet know not how to avoid it. It is desired that I should retract; if by this what they aim at could be effected, I would do so without delay, but the opposition of my opponents has spread my writings further than I had ever hoped, and they have laid too deep hold on the souls of men. There is now much talent, education, and free judgment in our Germany: were I to retract, I should, in the opinions of my Germans, cover the Church with still greater shame; but it is my opponents who have brought disgrace in Germany upon the Romish Church." He concludes his letter politely. "Do not doubt my readiness to do more, if it should be in my power. May Christ preserve your Holiness. M. Luther."

      There is much concealed behind this measured reserve. Even if the conceited Eckius had not immediately СКАЧАТЬ