THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION Se longer the monks but the humble and true "Friars Minor" in town and country, the simple servants and handmaids upon whom the Lord would pour out His Spirit when peace would come to Israel, as prophesied by the prophet Joel:
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions;
And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.
After Olivi's days, criticism was no longer just leveled at the wealth of the Church, but increasingly at wealth as a sign of a Church poor or even barren in spirit. As critics of the official Church were subjected to ever greater persecution, concern grew into suspicion and suspicion into the conviction that in Rome the harbingers of the Antichrist had invaded and taken over the leadership of the Church. It was not so much the Plague, the devastating epidemic that swept Europe in waves between 1348 and 1352, as it was the great Western schism of 1378 to 1415 that gave impetus to chiliasm and allowed wandering preachers of repentance access beyond the "common man" to the more educated circles.
Since 1378 it had seemed evident that the Church of the priests must be in its final throes. One pope in Rome and another in Avignon, each denouncing the other and using excommunication and interdict to call the Devil down upon his opponent! The Council of Pisa was summoned in 1409 to put an end to the havoc, but instead of fulfilling hopes and restoring
Christian unity, it bestowed a third pope on Christianity. It is true that the Council of Constance succeeded in reuniting the Western Church in 1415, but hopes of a new age, of the millennium of peace, remained a dream pursued well into the sixteenth century.
Initially, Martin Luther was well received among chiliasts. They welcomed him as a prophet of transition to a new era and defender of the "new
Begetting the Antichrist. Woodcut from Der Antichrist, Strasbourg, ca. 1480. age," the age of the Spirit and of peace. But he disappointed them, for his reformation did not seek to transform society in order to prepare the way for the millennium. Bitterly, the militant "champions of God" turned away from him. Preeminent among them was Thomas Miinzer, who had a large following of chiliastic prophets, all of them driven by the will to extirpate the "godless" in order to ensure that the reformation would be in place in time for the Day of Judgment.
Luther's reformation was not oriented toward a "new age" in their sense.
He was not a chiliast, nor was he heralding the millennium.
It would be premature for the reader to breathe a sigh of relief, thinking that he could now leave these obscure medieval speculators behind and turn to a modern man in Luther. Such a divide is artificial and misleading, for all the historically important social and political ideals of Western civilization grew out of the expectation of this messianic reign of peace, even though the preparations were to exact a high price, particularly from the "godless" on the opposing side.
Disparaging talk of "utopias," which are to be found "nowhere" (from the Greek u tépos, "no place"), misses the point. From the United States to the Soviet Union experience is shaped by the hope, and sometimes the unTHE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION shakable conviction, that one day this kingdom of peace will be established and flourish; or even that it has already become reality in God's own country, wherever that may be, and however imperfect as yet. These are medieval ideas of reformation which, in secularized form, influence the modern world, seeking fulfilment in communism, American populism, or international pacifism. This belief in progress becomes an empty, materialistic shell or a dictatorship devoid of respect for humanity when the renewal of society is no longer sustained by the vision that, however dark it may be, the present can be endured as the birthpangs which mark the coming "reformatio."
THIS MEDIEVAL heritage is not of specifically Christian origin but is part of an ongoing Judaeo-Christian tradition. The hope that the millennium will come has undeniably been one of the mainsprings of Judaism all the way through to the present state of Israel. The Israeli chief rabbinate has approved a prayer for the state of Israel as the "beginning of redemption"; Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews alike say and repeat it: "Our Father in Heaven, Rock and Redeemer of Israel, bless the state of Israel, the beginning of the sprouting of our redemption."'
There is good reason to believe that this close association of the state of Israel with the messianic kingdom was born out of the horrid experience of bloody "coexistence" with Christians in a Christian world.
But there are also genuine Christian roots in the Christian world's desire to prove itself a credible vanguard for the kingdom of God, and there lives the hope that a new age can be ushered in by means of social progress. Thus a vital element of the Middle Ages became a structural element of the modern world. In this important respect, Luther is not our contemporary.
We encounter here the alien Reformer, who was no longer medieval, but neither had he become modern. To capture this alien Luther in modern categories, we would have to call him an "anti-Zionist." Yet this is not to say that if he were alive he would necessarily be an opponent of the state of Israel, let alone argue for its annihilation. On the contrary, the very existence of Israel would have forced him to re-think his presuppositions in consideration of his oath to be the first to be circumcised should the Jews ever again succeed in establishing a state*—so impossible did the idea seem to him.
His brand of anti-Zionism did not concern a state but an ideology, that fundamental evil in which mankind has entangled itself since time immemorial.
Luther rejected all endeavors to establish a kingdom of God on earth. According to his promises, God himself will be the center of His kingdom on Zion, in the New Jerusalem. In Luther's view Zionism is the impatient effort
The Last Days have come to an end, graves open, and trumpets herald the Last Judgment.
Woodcut from Der Antichrist, Strasbourg, ca. 1480.
THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION to implement God's plan and launch the future kingdom oneself: such aspirations make everyone, whether Jew or Christian, into a Zionist—and Zion is everywhere.
The "modern" Zionists of Luther's time were the bishops and popes who placed their trust in temporal power in order to establish a papal state. Even more serious, the Roman curia claimed to be Zion, the unshakable foundation of God's kingdom on earth. From Luther's perspective, "Zionist reformation" meant the subjugation of all nations and empires under the dominion of Rome, a claim the papacy indeed adhered to until well into the sixteenth century.
Since, Luther insists, reformation does not entail domination, but service to the world, Rome falls strikingly silent. Popes, priests, and prelates are all equally keen to put off the necessary reform measures until the Day of Judgment. In response to the major reform program of Pope Hadrian VI, presented at the Diet of Nuremberg on December 30, 1523, Luther interpreted the curia's efforts with laconic irony: in Rome it takes two men for a reformation, "one to milk the billy goat, the other to hold the strainer." "
The City of God as Utopia Very much counter to the temperament of his age—and of later, "modern" times—Luther took a vigorous stand against all efforts to wrest from God
His timetable, and to force—with sword in hand—the coming kingdom of peace. Contrary to the hopes of the party of national liberation, he opposed the rebellious imperial knights who wanted to terminate the regime of the self-serving prelates and princes.
Even more problematic is his stand against the peasants who had for so long been demanding their rights and were now gathering to fight for the rights of God as well; Thomas Miinzer was making one flaming appeal after another to put an end to the rule of the godless, and Huldrych Zwingli, that proud, pious citizen of Zurich, was uniting Europe to combat the Hapsburgs and thus do battle for the Kingdom of God.
From differing perspectives, later generations considered these various groups and movements to be heralds of the future and of "progress": after all, the courageous knights dared to confront the princely clan; the oppressed peasants kindled the early proletarian revolution; Thomas Miinzer, the protagonist of peasants' rights, was martyred for decrying the rule of the aristocracy; and finally Zwingli, the reformer of Zurich, advocated the estabPeasants torturing an indulgence preacher named Rychardus Hunderlist. Pen-and-ink drawing by Niklaus Manuel Deutsch.
THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION lishment of democracy in Church and state. Were it not for Martin Luther, the history of the Reformation could have become the glorious story of Germany's advance into the modern era.
Though certainly impressive as a religious figure, from the point of view of progress Luther seems an unworldly, if not demonic figure: Why do we not finally let this man, with his curious sense of God and the Beyond, pass into history? After all, are not five hundred years enough?
No matter how resolved we might be to leave Luther in the past, an enigma remains. If his reformation was indeed so unrelated to the concerns or needs of this present world, how was it that his message could break out of the monastic cell, and his voice evoke such a politically powerful movement throughout and far beyond Germany? Had then all his students and disciples misunderstood this monk? But perhaps his contemporaries understood
Luther perfectly well and were indeed no longer convinced that it was in the service of God to draw the sword with the knights of the empire, to hurl a firebrand with the peasants, to call to arms like Thomas Miinzer, or, like
Zwingli, to plot a European campaign. Had the means of force been the way of God, the history of salvation would have been simpler—and bloodier.
There would have been no need for Jesus Christ to die—he could simply have invoked the protection of the legions of angels. But his reply to Pontius
Pilate rejected such recourse to violence: "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight" (John 18.36).
Luther's view of reformation was shaped by this testimony of Jesus before Pilate: even if the joyous assembly of God's children on Mount Zion were to be close at hand, this climax of history could be brought about only by God.
Luther had to look far back into Church history, past Hus and Wyclif, Petrus Olivi and Joachim of Fiore, to find witnesses for his vision of the reformation to come. He turned to Bernard of Clairvaux, the great twelfth-century reform preacher, and Augustine, the fifth-century Church Father. Here he found a true rendering of the New Testament evidence of what would happen in the Last Days, as well as an adequate interpretation of these events.
As has so often been the case in the history of the Western Church, it was again a work of Augustine that proved to be of decisive help: this time his most mature work, the City of God. Augustine wrote at a fateful juncture in the history of both the Roman Empire and the Church. The long-feared
"decline of the West" was setting in. The Visigoth chief, Alaric, had conquered the "eternal" city of Rome in 410, thus striking a blow at the spiritual foundations of the empire. It was as if the world had to hold its breath:
Rome, symbol of civilization and peace, had fallen and was now at the mercy of barbarians. Bitterly, contemporaries tried to find reasons for the catastroA MEDIEVAL EVENT phe. Could it have been Christianity? That the barbarians could destroy the pride of the empire and that Rome had fallen must be punishment for deserting the gods of their fathers.
But the Christians also were bewildered, and puzzled over how to interpret the events. How was the disintegration of Roman law and order to be understood? How could there be a future without Rome? For them, too, the world was falling apart. How could God allow the Roman Empire to fade and pass away when He had led it to the baptismal font through the Emperor
Augustine did not evade any of these questions, trying instead to dispel 'the dreams of believers and non-believers alike about classical and Christian
Rome. The pagan empire—what more was it than a band of thieves? And Christian Rome—is that what an outpost of the kingdom of God was supposed to be like? No, because the time between the first coming of Christ
Incarnate and His return will not run along the imperial lines of a kingdom of God on earth. The Thousand Years between the first and the final coming of Christ will see states and cultures come and go; Rome is not to be an exception. Only the City of God will endure; but as an unarmed community of true Christians, without earthly power. At the end of the thousand years the eschatological prophecy of Revelations is to be fulfilled: "He [the Devil] must be loosed a little season" (20.3). Then Christianity will experience an unparalleled time of terror. The present threat from barbarians and pagans is nothing in comparison with the tribulations at the end, when Satan will seem to overcome God, when the Gospel will be forced underground and the Christian message of strength and consolation will have to be preached in secret.
Augustine's only uncertainty concerned the exact nature of the final battle: would the Antichrist emerge from within the Church, or would he found an Antichurch? There was, however, no doubt that the City of God would be shaken to its very foundation. This is St. Augustine's Christian utopia.
The Antichrist and His Designs Luther's way of speaking about the Antichrist has become alien to us. Usually it is explained in terms of "angst" and widely felt insecurity, so typical of the waning of the Middle Ages. Yet the fear of the Antichrist is not just the product of a particularly superstitious and phantasy-ridden time. It has much deeper roots in the Christian tradition.
THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION Christ driving "all them that sold and bought" (Fohn 2.14ff) out of the temple. Woodcut from the pamphlet Passional Christi et Antichristi (1521), illustrated by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Luther was certainly not untouched by the fears of his age, which may well explain why he was able to address them so effectively and capture the attention of such a wide audience. Yet the decisive factor in his way of coping with this mood was its use as an incentive for the intensive study of St. Augustine, whose interpretation of history and vision of the Last Days he learned to employ in deciphering the events of his own time.
Luther's view was not, however, shaped by Augustine alone. A lasting influence was Bernard of Clairvaux (+1143), who was for Luther one of the last Church Fathers and for modern historians the mystical reformer and protagonist of the Crusades. Bernard had taken up Augustine's concept of the Last Days and adapted it to developments in medieval history.
When Luther first raised his voice against indulgences in his lectures during the summer of 1514, the sense of urgency in his attack was derived from St. Bernard's periodization of world history into three epochs spanning the thousand years from the birth of Christ to the end of time: at the beginning,
The Vicar of Christ "deals" with indulgences. Woodcut from the pamphlet Passional Christi et Antichristi (1521), illustrated by Lucas Cranach the Elder. in the first epoch of the Holy Fathers and Martyrs, the Church had suffered bloody persecutions when martyrs had to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their faith. Then followed the age of the heretics, whose attacks on Christian doctrine represented a far more subtle and thus a far more dangerous threat to the Church. However the most serious and radical peril to Christianity developed in these last days, here and now: no longer did the mortal threat come from the outside, but—much worse—from the very bosom of the Church itself. Bernard warned emphatically against this corruption from within: what threatens us now is the unimaginable seduction of the simple believer by the great and terrible adversary—"that is the Antichrist, the deceitful liar .
. whom only the Lord Jesus can kill with the flaming spirit of His mouth, and whom He will destroy at the time of His glorious return." '°
In the summer of 1514 Luther was not yet prepared to accept Bernard's diagnosis that the Church was "incurably" ill. But he did invoke Bernard's epochal sequence to mobilize all defensive forces since "exactly these times
THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION of external peace and glittering prosperity are extremely dangerous to the Church." Now the threat is coming from within: the Church has made its peace with the world, settled comfortably, and gone for striking it rich. Today it is even selling protection against God's salutary punishment by means of indulgences."
Three years before posting his theses, Luther had already come to regard the sale of indulgences as proof of the grievous extent to which the Church had gone astray. Cautiously, but in retrospect clearly adumbrating the battle to come, Luther warned his students of the perils of an anti-Christian perversion within the Church itself. He found the signs of the Last Days spelled out with precision in St. Matthew's Gospel:
But he answered them, "You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down."
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will this be, and what wil be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?"
And Jesus answered them, "Take heed that no one leads you astray.
For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet.
For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places:
All this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.
And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another.
And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end will be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come."
(Matt. 24.2-14; the New Oxford Annotated Bible) From the very start it was clear to Luther that Jesus' prophecy of the Last
Days fully applied to the situation of the Church in his time. With Bernard's warnings in mind he concluded already in 1514: "The way I see it, the Gosa
Albrecht Diirer, Apocalyptic Dream, 1523 pel of St. Matthew counts such perversions as the sale of indulgences among the signs of the Last Days." "
In the following five years—from 1514 to 1519—Luther found his fears increasingly confirmed, and out of concern grew consternation. This insight into the tradition preceding Luther—St. Matthew, St. Augustine, St. Bernard—allows us to grasp his sense of urgency in preaching the Gospel. This urgency breeds impatience, and impatience an uncompromising stance against all opposition. We should not expect from him a cool and dispassionate analysis of the persons and events of his day. For him, time was not just running—it was running out. The unleashing of the Devil, which Augustine had expected in the distant future and which had drawn close in the days of St. Bernard, has now come about. Once the Church invokes canon law and papal might to put its full authority behind indulgences, there can no longer be any doubt: the Antichrist is begotten, the Last Days have begun."
For this reason the time for curial cures and half-hearted reforms is over.
It is no longer just a matter of clearing up abuses and scandals; the Church is being threatened to its very foundations. Even our best reforms fall short of the Great Reformation which God Himself is to implement on the Last Day.
THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION nn When, after 1518, the Gospel was once again being preached in its true spirit and without human distortion, Luther never claimed this would bring the long-expected cure, but rather the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come" (Matt. 24.14). Luther never expected the Gospel to repulse the Adversary, but to provoke instead intensified attacks on the faithful people of God. Those are the "afflictions of the Last Days," as the Scriptures have foretold.
What are the implications of this new understanding of Reformation? In all our handbooks and in keeping with all standards of historical scholarship, the Reformation precedes the Counter-Reformation. But according to Luther's eschatological interpretation of history, exactly the reverse applies: the Reformation is preceded by the counterreformation. Luther's public proclamation of the message of the cross is usually described as the "Reformation." For Luther this is certainly God's work and gift of solace for His persecuted Church. It is not yet the Great Reformation but rather the prelude to the counterreformation. For him there can be no pursuit o1 the millennium, since neither sweat nor sword can ever advance the messianic kingdom. In this crucial respect nothing but strict pacifism is expected from the Christian: enduring, persevering, waiting—publicly proclaiming the Gospel, openly beseeching God to intervene. "Thus the only thing that can comfort you in this last stage is the Day of Judgment and your faith that the lord rules in Eternity—ultimately all the godless will vanish."
The other dimension of Luther's reformation is directed toward order and improvement in the world. Let us return to the Wittenberg lecture hall in the summer semester of 1514 to hear Luther's warnings against the peddling of indulgences. This whole indulgences issue, this selling of insurance as protection against the wrath of God is the appalling consequence of Rome's assiduous efforts at securing inward and outward dominion over the people of God. The Papal State must be expanded and holy wars must be fought for the honor of God and the growth of the Church—thus runs the shameless propaganda. Luther's comment: "Never before has the Church been so desolate." '®
In the following years Luther increasingly stresses the political consequences of curial power politics: never before has the world been so badly off. The prince of darkness will not content himself with the collapse of the Church, he wants to rule the world as well, so that—as he planned from the beginning—he can destroy God's creation and produce chaos again. Now that the Last Days have actually come, not only is steadfastness of faith
Plbtag/ oder vlied brie/ Bes chen Surften £ucifers/Doctor Aiartin Luther igt gu gefande.
The Devil proclaims the opening of his feud with Luther THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION "Never has the world been in such a state": red biretta (probably Cardinal Albrecht of Mainz) and black cowl (probably Johann Tetzel) peddling indulgences. The "bigwigs" and cunning usurers relieve the "common man" of his money. called for, survival in the world is at stake as well. It is of lasting significance that Luther's rejection of all historical utopias did not entail abandoning the Church and the world to chaos: Christians are threatened but not helpless, under attack but not defenseless. Where the Gospel is preached, Satan's destructive assaults can be survived. Where Christian teachings tear the authorities from the clutches of the Antichrist, the world can once again come into its own. Luther regarded this emancipation of the world, the restoration of its secular rights and its political order, as both necessary and possible.
But for this dimension he used the sober, secular, practical, temporal, and above all relative term betterment rather than the glorious Reformation.
In short: Reformation is the work of God, betterment the task of Adam and Eve.
"Repentance is better than indulgence"
Luther's criticism of indulgences was by no means novel or unprecedented; reform Catholics both then and now could and can emphasize and take his stance. Even within his own order, which had so vehemently championed the cause of papal authority, voices had been raised against Roman indulgences.
Around the year 1452 the Augustinian Gottschalk Hollen had put it sucA MEDIEVAL EVENT Lucas Cranach the Younger, The Contrast between Christ's True Religion and the False Idolatry of the Antichrist. Left half: Luther preaching Christ's sacrifice; among his audience, Fohn Frederick, Elector of Saxony, carrying a cross. Right half: Satirical representation of the Roman Catholic Church, with St. Francis looking down in horror upon, among other things, the Pope peddling indulgences. Colored woodcut, ca. 1544. cinctly: "Repentance is better than indulgences." Let us consider this comprehensible but at the same time peculiar statement for a moment. Were indulgences to be granted without repentance and sinners permitted to spend good money to avoid examining their consciences? Certainly not; there was no way around the confessional. Only through the sacrament of penance could the contrite sinner be sure that God had forgiven his sins and remitted the eternal torments of Hell. What remained, however, were the temporal punishments which the person, absolved from sin, nonetheless had to expect, be it here on earth or in purgatory. It was at these temporal punishments that indulgences were aimed.
The Church can wholly or partially remit the penalties imposed upon a contrite penitent for his sins. Thus repentance is a necessary condition for the remission of penalties. And yet the Augustinian monk's warning was not unjustified. There was a special, particularly sought-after type of indulgence that went well beyond the remission of temporal punishments. Plenary indulgences, which only the pope could offer, promised the complete remission of punishment and sin, so that though a visit to the confessional was still ar hey a Luther's ninety-five theses, printed in Nuremberg in 1517 necessary, contrition, the condition for forgiveness of sin, could be proven by the possession of a plenary indulgence.
Luther could have used words similar to Hollen's to formulate his objections to the theory and practice of the remission of punishment. But in one decisive point Luther went beyond late medieval criticism of indulgences.
The motto of his ninety-five theses of October 31, 1517, ran parallel but in contrast to Hollen: Good works are better than indulgences.
Christians should be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy performs a better deed than if he buys indulgences.
Christians should be taught that he who sees someone needy but looks past him and buys an indulgence instead receives not the pope's remission but God's wrath. (Thesis 45)
Mending one's ways is the best penance, but it is directed toward life in the world and is thus contrary to allegedly holy withdrawal from the world.
Christians should be taught that he who has but a limited income should keep the money necessary for his family's needs and under no circumstances invest in indulgences. (Thesis 46)
Luther always advocated the necessity of good works: "I should be called Doctor bonorum operum, the Doctor of good works." By 1516 at the latest, he no longer considered good works as necessary to gain God's favor, but he stressed them all the more as indispensable for service to the world and its needs. This insight would become the heart of his program in the years to come. During his early years as a professor in Wittenberg, he had been a prophet of repentance. In 1520, when his writings carried his voice beyond the walls of the monastery, and he had become a presence in the public arena, he proved to be adept at the ways of the world, and fully aware of its needs.
This cannot be taken for granted. The Middle Ages saw many preachers attracting mass audiences—ascetic figures with the gift of the word, who called for conversion and reform. Their common theme was the appeal to turn away from the world and live according to the ascetic model of monastic ideals. A life lived solely in the service of holiness never failed to make an impression. In 1533 the adult doctor looked back on the pupil Martin, who had once marveled at a holy man in Magdeburg:
When I was in my fourteenth year and attending school in Magdeburg, I saw the Prince von Anhalt with my own eyes .
. who in the coarse i THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION On habit [of a Franciscan friar] was begging for bread in the main street and carrying his sack like a mule, so that he was bent to the ground. ...
He had fasted, kept vigil, chastised himself so much that he looked like death, nothing but bones and skin; and he soon died. .
. Whoever saw him gaped in devotion and had to feel ashamed of living a secular life.'
Lucas Cranach's 1520 engraving of Martin Luther the Augustinian Hermit (frontispiece) shows precisely these features of a monastic preacher and holy man: the Savonarola of Wittenberg, the antithesis of a gluttonous monk.
By remaining within the framework of monastic holiness, Cranach's portrait misses the real Luther. Luther's new morality was not ascetic or unworldly.
It was directed toward the world—not to transform it into a monastery but to let it remain the world and become what it was, God's good creation.
Though he accorded jurists and their jurisprudence nothing but biting derision all his life, he hailed secular courts which sentenced according to imperial law. He defended the humanity of such jurisdiction, which "is better, more comprehensive, more sensible than canon law." ""
AT THE end of October 1520 Luther published his manifesto The Freedom of a Christian, which deals with man's salvation as the gift of liberty, the new freedom for faith and action. "A Christian is a free master over all things and subject to no one." '* Freed from the constraints of the law, the believer has become heir to Christ's holiness, justice, and piety. "Is this not a joyous exchange—the rich, noble, pious bridegroom Christ takes this poor, despised, wicked little whore in marriage, redeems her of all evil, and adorns her with all his goods?" '? What is this "joyous exchange"? It is liberation from enslavement to the anxious craving for salvation. Now the "poor, despised, wicked little whore" can herself start to hand out the riches she has received for free. Since Christ has filled our needs, we can serve our neighbor "in his wants and for his betterment."
Christian freedom is received for free and freely shared with one's neighbor. That is why "a Christian is a servant of all and subject to everyone."
Luther had treated social reform, the collective dimension of this service, two months earlier in his address to the German "King, Princes, Nobility,
Cities, and Communities,""' as the original title has it. Ostentatious luxury, "through which so many noblemen and wealthy people are impoverished," must be curbed; trade must be regulated so that "German money [cannot] leave the land"; usury is "the greatest plague of the German nation. .
Should it last another one hundred years, it would not be possible for Germany to keep one single penny." Business monopolies are equally immoral: "The Fuggers and their ilk should be brought under control"; and finally, "Is it not wretched that we Christians continue to allow public whorehouses"! "
These practical reform proposals are not intended to compete with the historically very attractive medieval utopias of reformation. There are worlds between the Address to the Christian Nobility and the dreams expressed in medieval reform treatises, with their hopes that society would be transformed through an angel-pope or peace-emperor. Nor does Luther's program call for militant saints of the Last Days, who, without regard for losses,
"straighten paths in the desert" for the Lord. He does not present his points of reform in the tone of finality characteristic of a theocrat who wants to make the world finally and forever comply with the laws of God. Luther's reform catalogue lacks any claim to eternal validity; it comprises, as he says, no more than the suggestion of a theologian who recognizes the problems of his time without having a clear view of all the practical aspects. Reformation as "betterment" does not require a final, authoritative, ideological blueprint; it demands political experience and expert factual knowledge.
Luther never styled himself a "reformer." He did not, however, shrink from being seen as a prophet; he wanted to spread the Gospel as an "evangelist." He called himself preacher, doctor, or professor and was all of these.
Yet he never presumed to be a reformer, nor did he ever claim his movement to be the "Reformation."
He didn't and he couldn't—because "reformation" is God's ultimate intervention. On the rare occasions Luther employed the common term reformatio, he meant corrective action. But even when this is clear, we should beware of making him into the inspiring idealist who mounts a promising offensive for moral rearmament on the threshold of the modern age. Luther was proclaiming the Last Days, not the modern age. Though historically seen as the last days of the Middle Ages, for him they were the beginning of the end of all times. "We shall overcome"—but not by gradually containing sin, war, and misery. Against these, he raised hell.
Though often misunderstood, Luther's suggestions for improvement should not be regarded as Christian ethics in the sense of timeless directives. Luther did not leave governments and societies an unalterable plan for all times and all centuries, a "Handbook of Public Life" or a binding program of Christian politics. His ethics are "survival ethics in dangerous times." In the context of chaos and danger they are admittedly vital, downto-earth, practical—not legalistic but adaptable to the changing plights of THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION mankind. Faith shatters any claim to eternal validity, opening instead the eyes of the faithful for what is the most needed service to others. The Christian living between the rage of the Devil and the wrath of God, between the power of chaos and the coming judgment, must make the most of the time that remains and must staunchly protect creation, our living space. God entrusted the world to man and woman, and they must discharge their duties to the very last; in this and this alone can they be of help to God. "Yes, He can probably do it alone, but He does not want to; He wants us to act with Him and honors us by carrying out His will with and through us. If we do not desire this honor, He will help the poor by Himself." "
Those who refuse will not be able to escape God's judgment, no matter how many masses they have offered, pilgrimages they have undertaken, or heretics they have fought: how can leaving home and family behind to chase after one's own salvation really be considered a good work? The Devil will laugh because we are harming God and helping Satan to bring about the chaos he loves.
Luther horizontalized Christian ethics: he transferred its goal from Heaven to earth. Good works are not required for salvation but crucial for surviving in a threatened world.
Luther's proclamation of the reformation-to-come, as well as his call to reform and betterment, are presented in a medieval vocabulary and can only be understood against the background of the Middle Ages. Yet it is exactly this background which allows us also to discern the uniqueness of his vision.
This entails above all the rejection of any attempt to transform the world, whether it be advanced by the disciples of Joachim, by Pope Innocent III, or by the sixteenth-century peasants rebelling for their God-given rights.
Luther can be seen as a follower of Bernard of Clairvaux—but then a radical follower, because the situation since the days of St. Bernard had so deteriorated that the crusade now to be launched is no longer aimed at the liberation of the Holy Land but of the Holy People, the Church itself. Because of the advanced time of world history, these crusades can no longer be waged by armies. Only one weapon is left: the preaching of a powerless Christ, and Hence it is not a question of Luther initiating or bringing on the reformation. From his point of view, all he or any Christian can do is to initiate reforms to better the world to such an extent that it can survive until the moment when God will put a final end to our chaos. This view of lifeduring-the-Last-Days makes Luther so difficult to understand for people in the modern world; he virtually provokes an interpretation that permits the old opponents to write him off as "medieval" and the modern supporters to style him as a spokesman for progress.
The fact that Luther cannot be classified either as medieval or modern may also explain his special gift of presenting anew the original Christian message of the imminent dawning of the Kingdom, vivid and vital, real and realistic for the people of his time. From today's perspective, his linguistic skills were sketchy, and he lacked the necessary scholarly tools. But in his ability to show how to live a Christian life between-the-times, he was centuries ahead of today's most advanced theological scholarship.
Enduring Influences: Father Hans Glory to Luther! Eternal glory to the esteemed man to whom we owe the recovery of our most precious treasures and on whose good deeds we still live today! It would be unseemly to complain of the limitations of his views. The dwarf who stands on the giant's shoulders can indeed see farther than the giant himself, especially if the dwarf puts on his spectacles. But not withstanding our broader perspective, we miss that lofty intuition and giant heart, which we cannot acquire.' his, too, is Martin Luther, whom the enlightened cosmopolitan Heinrich Heine holds up as a mirror for his own times. The modern dwarf who has been so fortunate as to escape the darkness and doom of the Middle Ages is contrasted with the towering giant of the past. So great an act of liberation could have been accomplished only by a "giant heart," a completely unique, brilliant, and ultimately inexplicable figure.
It is the task of the historian to oppose stubbornly and with all his might the poet's adoration of Luther as a genius. Poetic intuition that divines the mighty "secret of Luther's heart" will not stand up in the high courts of psychology and social history. It must be possible to uncover the sources and resources of this person, at least to get closer to him by analyzing modes of experience and patterns of behavior. Evidence that would enable us to answer all such questions is extremely scarce; but for that very reason, no helping hands may be disregarded—and all suspicions against psychohistory must be put aside."
As HIs earliest environment and the basis of his development in childhood and youth, Luther's home and family deserve particular attention. Luther was born in the center of the county of Mansfeld, in Eisleben, a small town with a population of no more than four thousand, situated about seventy
Luther was no stranger to the peasants' way of life. Daniel Hopfer, Bauernhaus und Bauernschmaus (Farm and Feast) miles southwest of Wittenberg and some sixty miles northeast of Erfurt.
Luther always considered himself a Mansfelder, remaining attached to his home soil even in his final role as mediator between quarreling princes.
Luther once unequivocally gave 1484 as the year of his birth: "I was born in Mansfeld [in the county of Mansfeld] in 1484, that is certain." But as in the case of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Luther's early chronology is not that clear at all. He might be assumed to have known the year of his birth, but not even his mother was sure of it; accurate records were not yet being kept about human life—except perhaps in Heaven. His younger colleague and biographer, Philipp Melanchthon, resolutely insisted on the year 1483, basing his date on the horoscope he had worked out for Luther. How often Melanchthon's confidence in the art of astrology exposed him to his older friend's ridicule! But a great deal speaks for the fact that the "stargazer" was right this time, and that Luther was born on November 10, 1483 and baptized— as was usual at the time—on the following day, St. Martin's Day. And so he came to be named Martin.
A year after Martin, their second son, was born, the Luder family moved to the town of Mansfeld, some seven miles from Eisleben and only half as large (circa 2,000 inhabitants). Luther's father had started as a miner and a THE LONGED-FOR REFORMATION
A medieval mine. Luther's father, Hans Luder, was originally a miner. had been able to take advantage of Mansfeld's flourishing copper-mining industry and there to become a Hiittenmeister, the lessee of one pit in the copper mines belonging to the counts of Mansfeld. Hans Luder hailed from Mohra near Eisenach in the Thuringian part of Electoral Saxony. He was of peasant stock but as a Huittenmeister had already attained a position of respect and a good income shortly after Martin's birth, and this despite the fact that copper mining was susceptible to the fluctuations of the economy and required considerable investment.
Hans' father, Heine Luder, had been a relatively independent farmer with only a modest annual tax to be paid to the elector of Saxony. By marrying a Ziegler, grandfather Luder allied two of the most prosperous peasant families in the village of Mohra; from then on the Luders had a good deal of land to call their own. Though Martin Luther was never a farmer himself, his family background afforded him insight into the conditions of the peasantry.
Thus he realized that many of the peasants' grievances were justified, as made clear in 1525, when he tried to mediate in the Peasants' War: "What good is it if a peasant's field yields as many gulden as stalks and kernels but the authorities take all the more, increase their luxury continuously, and squander what they have on clothes, food, drink, buildings, and the like, as if it were chaff?" '