THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG In the monastery Luther was surrounded by saintly helpers, ranging from St. Anne and the Blessed Virgin to St. Augustine, the founder of the order, but at home these impressive names did not sway the resistance. "The Devil may have had a hand in it," Hans Luder still contended when he attended his son's first mass as an ordained priest. It was, of course, well known that the Devil could produce hail and thunder"°—but hardly to bring about such a good work as the decision for monastic life! Only with the Reformational breakthrough did the monk begin to discover the Devil's surprising interest in "good" works. But this time Satan had thoroughly miscalculated. As Luther later saw it, by taking his monastic vows he not only acted against his father and tried to take God's will into his own hands, he also caused the Devil a great deal of harm: "I became a monk by driving my head through the wall: against the will of my father, my mother, of God, and of the Devil." "'
First there were his parents; they had quite different plans for his career.
Against the will of God, because He rejects the monastic way of life, not wanting the fearful sinner to seek salvation and refuge in good works. Lastly, the Devil had come to considerable harm since it was in the monastery that the indulgence controversy started. And indeed, at least in the beginning, the weapons Luther used to combat the threat posed by indulgences were truly those of a conscientious monk.
There is one further point to be added: the monastery not only provided the spiritual vision which made Luther assail the indulgences; it also prepared him for the second stage in his career as reformer. By wearing the habit for fifteen years he was able to speak to the condition of a whole generation of nuns and monks who, though drawn by the message of Evan- -gelical freedom, still felt in conscience bound by their vows. Luther had gone the way of Europe's highest and most subtle religion of conscience, the way of the "religious," as monks were called. He trekked years along this path before he could say: "Christ is different from Moses, the pope, and the whole world; He is not just different, He is far more than our conscience. .
. When the conscience assails you, He says: "Believe!" * Piety and Politics: Cowl and Cabal To the approximately fifty monks at the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt the young magister was an attractive but not extraordinary candidate. When
Luther first set foot in the chapter house, the convent had two members who had already preceded him from university to monastery: Johannes von Paltz
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION and Paltz's successor to the Augustinian chair at the university, Johannes Nathin; Johannes Lang and Bartholomaeus Arnoldi were to follow. Apart from Johannes von Staupitz, the vicar general, these were the men who were to be of particular importance to Brother Martinus. Luther had not entered just any monastery; this was the illustrious "Black Monastery," which now housed the studium generale of the Saxon Reform Congregation, the only one until a.second study center was attached to the University of Wittenberg in 1504.
There has been considerable puzzling over why Luther decided for the Augustinians and not some other order. One factor might have been that the Erfurt monastery had established a fraternity in honor of St. Anne." Such a fraternity allowed the monastic community to reach out to the city beyond monastery walls, through laymen who were also active members. This gave people outside the order, like the student Luther, an opportunity to get a clear picture of the Augustinian community. Moreover, Observantism, the strict observance of the rule of the order, must have attracted one who sought to make a radical break with the world. And finally there was the possibility of studying theology in an order that would not force him to abandon the via moderna, which Luther had learned at the feet of Arnoldi and Trutfetter.
After all, the Dominicans were pledged to Thomas Aquinas and the Franciscans primarily committed to Duns Scotus. Though the Augustinians had decided for the via antiqua in their statutes, in practice they granted freedom of choice.
The Erfurt monastery of Augustinian Hermits had played a central role since the beginnings of the stormy history of the order. In 1256 Pope Alexander IV united a number of smaller Italian communities of monks and hermits under the rule of St. Augustine. Like the two larger mendicant orders, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, the Augustinians, too, were caught up in the fifteenth-century quest for reform. Following the Council of Basel an "Observant" reform movement was also established among them. Its objective was the return to strict adherence to the rule of the order, which had gradually been loosened to adapt to the practical requirements of life.
Henceforth communal recitation of the Divine Office and communal meals were to be required again, the rule of silence was to be respected, private property—especially books—was forbidden, the habit of the order was to be uniform, the prior's permission was needed to leave the monastery premises, and all dealings with women were strictly prohibited.
When they were founded the mendicant orders served two important functions: as the Church's answer to criticism of its wealth—it had long since become the largest land owner in Europe—and as a reaction to demoTHE ROAD TO WITTENBERG
I3I graphic changes that confronted the Church with daunting problems. The secular clergy could no longer cope with the demands arising from increasing urbanization and found the mendicant orders an effective aid in ministering and preaching to the new urban masses. The hermits had originally settled in remote areas; now they were expressly charged with pastoral duties in the cities. Even north of the Alps there were Augustinian monasteries in many cities by the fourteenth century.
The peaceful coexistence of mendicant monks and secular priests did not last long. Rivalries and overlapping spheres of responsibility led to fierce conflicts between diocesan organizations and the heads of orders. The fifteenth-century era of reform was also an era of controversy. The mockery of "priests as dumb as beasts" and "lazy, gluttonous monks" was by no means just the product of Reformation propaganda, nor was it spread exclusively by laymen.
Thus the relationship between the regular and secular clergy was badly in need of repair. Johannes von Staupitz—appointed head of the German
Augustinian Observants in 1503—had written an expert opinion in Tubingen three years earlier, admonishing members of parishes to return to their priests and underscoring the obligation to attend mass and confession at their parish church. Johannes von Paltz, in Erfurt, like Staupitz an observant
Augustinian, made exactly the same point by instructing all laymen to heed the authority of the local priest as the vicar of Christ in the congregation, however dubious his conduct." The fact that, as he was convinced, there was little hope that the secular clergy would reform—"unless God miraculously intervenes" —did not nullify the obligation of obedience to the parish priest.
The organization of the orders was not bound to the existing diocesan structure of the Church. Provinces were independent from the bishop, and the individual provincials, heads of the provinces, reported. directly to their general in Rome. The mendicant orders' simple, efficient structure was threatened directly by the new reform endeavors of the Observants, for now a second form of organization was superimposed on the provincial system.
Since 1430 Augustinian monasteries had, for the purpose of reform, been withdrawing from the provincial structure to unite into independent reform congregations with no regard for provincial boundaries.
To enable such congregations to flourish and achieve the desired reforms, popes granted them special privileges that were to lead to grave discord. The Augustinian Observants were, for example, permitted to appoint their own vicar general, who was totally independent of the provincials and subject only to the general of the order. This development went so far that vicars general could, by appealing to the pope, withdraw their obedience from the general ee ee
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION Te ee of the order. This privilege was also written into the Constitutions of 1504.
From this moment on an irreparable rift in the order was only a brief step away. Reform or unity—the foundations for this structural alternative of the age of Reformation had already been laid.
Internal but noisy quarrels between the "reformed" and the "Conventual" or non-reformed monasteries now added complications to the bitter competition among the various orders and the sharp tensions between the monks and the secular clergy. Johannes von Staupitz is often accused of having provoked the decisive clash between the two factions of the Augustinian order in 1510. But this internal strife had already commenced full force under his predecessor, Andreas Proles. Proles had succeeded in expanding the congregation, which originally numbered five monasteries, to include twentyseven at the end of his period in office.
Expansion had taken place at the expense of the provinces, and the incorporation of hitherto conventualist houses rarely occurred without a bitter struggle. Proles was not slow to excommunicate "stubborn" monks and priors if they refused to join the reform congregation. He had secured the necessary outside pressure by gaining the support of temporal authorities like the city council of Nuremberg and of the Saxon prince, Duke William III, greatuncle of Luther's protector Frederick the Wise.
The year 1474 had seen Proles' success in winning the Erfurt monastery for the Observantine cause. When he tried to reform the Kénigsberg monastery in Franconia, however, it looked as if he had gone too far. The provincial categorically refused and was able to impel the general of the order in Rome, Jacob of Aquila, to intervene. Proles was removed from his post as vicar general and was threatened with excommunication should he try to add any more monasteries to the Observant congregation or ever again invoke the help of the temporal authorities.
This seemingly peripheral episode, one among many tensions in the late medieval Church, is extremely important for our understanding of the protection the electors of Saxony later afforded the Reformation. Every actor in this suspenseful play operated within a framework determined by princely politics and care for "his" territorial Church on the one hand and the concern of the Church for reform and unity on the other.*'! Duke William reacted sharply to the disciplinary measures against Proles and lodged a complaint with the Saxon provincial because the latter had dared to protest to the general against the secular authorities' help in the matter of monastic reform. William's line of argument was to set a precedent: this was, according to his complaint, one of "our" monasteries, which we have taken under "our protection." "
THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG In the meantime Proles had notified the duke that his Observants, the Erfurt Patres, wanted to resist the instructions from Rome and were determined to appeal from their poorly informed general to "our most Holy Father the Pope." The duke, preferring to keep the matter under his own jurisdiction, immediately wrote to the general, requesting him to rescind his decree against Proles. The provincial then carried the controversy to an extreme. He disregarded the duke's call for restraint and put the indeed unambiguous instructions of the general into effect. The monasteries of Gotha,
Langensalza, Sangerhausen, and Konigsberg, where Observantism had only just been introduced, returned to the provincial association. The duke then took drastic action, issuing instructions to his officials to break the resistance to "a thorough reformation." The Conventual monks were expelled and by order of the duke could no longer count on the protection of the secular authorities.
The Conventuals were deeply aggravated about their expulsion. A notice posted on the door of the Augustinian church in Gotha read: the Observants
"despise us as if they were saints." The biting mockery of this statement cannot be missed, for the man in the street knew all about monastic "saintliness'—"the more sainted, the more tainted." The persecuted faction made drastic threats—and gained the laughs for their side: since they were no longer deemed worthy to inhabit the "sainted halls" of the reformed monasteries, they would go to the bordellos and see to it that the ladies posted themselves at the monastery gates in the evening. The women could then recount their carnal experiences with these so saintly friars."
The Conventuals seemed to be maintaining the upper hand in their dispute with the "saints," for all the intermediaries who went to plead the case of the reformed congregation in Rome were flatly turned back. Only with the death of the general of the order did things change for the Observants. Jacob of Aquila died in the spring of 1476; shortly afterward a new provincial was elected in Saxony. And on July 1, 1477, a compromise was negotiated that must be regarded as a clear victory for Proles and Duke William. The provincial had to give his permission for the contested monasteries to leave the province and join the reform congregation. Only the Konigsberg monastery in Franconia was left to him as a token consolation. And, because as it was now decreed, the mandates and measures against Proles were infringements upon the privileges granted to the congregation by the pope, they were clearly invalid.
Yet this was not the end of the emilee The problem was a structural one and could not be settled by compromise. A fundamental decision had to be made, a choice between the Conventuals and the Observants. The ConvenTHE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION tuals had a "progressive" approach with what one might call "common sense," and were intent on adapting their monasteries to the demands of the time; the Observants desired "reform" and thus insisted on strict observance of the rule of the order. Then as now, one side or the other had to be supported. Even the historian, with his chronological advantage, must choose sides. As usual, value judgments are concealed in the choice of adjectives.
The "power-hungry" duke and the "ruthless" Proles had split the order— that is one view of this complex situation. But the opposite one had much to support it, too: a "sincere" prince and a vicar general "imbued with a fine sense of concerned religiosity" were carrying out reforms long overdue.
Apart from the question of a fair evaluation, this history of conflict in the Augustinian order provides a precise insight into the hopes and fears of the community Luther joined in the summer of 1505. First of all, Luther found admission into a monastic congregation which was not merely on paper committed to Observantism and thus to seclusion from the world, moral austerity, meditation, and intensive study. At the same time, however, the congregation was well versed in the ways of the world and did not hesitate to pursue the political aim of asserting itself in the power triangle of prince, provincial, and pope. Above all, these conflicts between congregation and province dragged the order into the increasingly important field of battle between Roman centralism and territorial autonomy.
The tension between pluralism and unity was already an acute problem in the late medieval Church, long before the time of the Reformation. The mendicant orders failed to meet the challenge of the time because the goals of reform proved to be incompatible with the desire for unity.
Reform or Unity: The Fundamental Question of an Age Johannes von Staupitz merely inaugurated a new phase in this old conflict when he tried to continue with different means the successful but perilous policies of his predecessor Proles. Once again we should beware of the tempting use of tendentious adjectives which abound in the literature when, for example, "fanatical" Brother Martin is found on the side of the Observants, and the "power-hungry" Vicar General Staupitz is seen plotting to unite the non-reformed Saxon province with his reformed congregation.
Both the dreams and the deeds of Staupitz deserve a second look.
For the cause of the Reformation it would prove to be of singular importance that Luther did not enter a monastery somewhere on the periphery, in Frankenhausen or Sangerhausen, but the one that regarded itself as the cenTHE ROAD TO WITTENBERG
T35 tral bastion of the respected congregatio reformata in Allemania, the German Augustinian Observants. Andreas Proles belonged to the Erfurt community; with Johannes von Paltz and Johannes Nathin, the monastery housed the leading theological authorities at the university who were at the same time the most dedicated spokesmen for radical monastic reform.
The German Observants elected as Proles' successor Johannes von Staupitz, destined to become one of the key figures of early Reformation history.
Johann von Staupitz, Luther's mentor and vicar general of the Augustinian Observant congregation. By an unknown master, ca. 1520.
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION Staupitz was a Saxon nobleman born in Motterwitz near Leisnig. He studied at the universities of Cologne and Leipzig, and in 1500 he obtained his doctoral degree in theology in Tiibingen, where he had been prior of the Augus-. tinian monastery since 1497. Shortly after being awarded his doctorate, he returned to his motherhouse in Munich, which he headed until 1502. His theological and monastic career, unlike Luther's, was totally unconnected with either the university or monastery in Erfurt. Except for confrontation.
In 1502 Elector Frederick the Wise summoned the approximately fortyfive-year-old Augustinian prior from Munich to assist in the founding of the University of Wittenberg. Staupitz became the first dean of theology in the winter semester of 1502—03 and held the chair of biblical theology for ten years, until he handed it over to Martin Luther in 1512.
The congregation considered him an attractive candidate to succeed Proles, what with his connections with the Saxon dynasty, which were as good as his predecessor's, his academic status as a professor and founding dean, and his interest in procuring a second Augustinian studium. And indeed on May 7, 1503, he was elected vicar general of the Augustinian Observants, a position he held for seventeen years. The circumstances had changed substantially by August 28, 1520, when he laid his office in the hands of the Nuremberg Augustinian Wenzeslaus Linck in Luther's birthplace of Eisleben. Linck was to be the last vicar general of the German reformed congregation. In the end, the Reformation both destroyed and completed the reform work of Proles and Staupitz.
With the election of Staupitz as vicar general the Erfurt monastery fell within his jurisdiction. His presence at the monastery on July 3, 1506, is well documented. It is not certain, however, whether during this visitation
Staupitz met Brother Martin for the first time. In his late (1555) account, Matthaus Ratzeberger, Luther's generally reliable biographer, may have been referring to this first encounter.
Ratzeberger relates that as a novice Luther had to do sweeping and cleaning as a "menial servant," so that little time remained for his studies. When
Staupitz learned of Luther's overwhelming interest in Bible studies, he convinced the prior to assign him a duty more appropriate to a magister; the task
Luther was then set was to memorize the Scriptures by heart, page by page.
Luther applied himself so diligently "that Doctor Staupitz was very much impressed, and kept a special eye on him above all others." **
Just as during his happy school years in Eisenach, Luther once again found a paternal friend, who not only encouraged him academically but also provided him with spiritual counsel, something Luther desperately needed,
THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG for as a priest and then a professor he was soon to be confronted with duties that imposed on him a hitherto unfamiliar responsibility: the cure of souls.
Luther was ordained in the spring of 1507, possibly on Easter Saturday, April 3; not even a year had elapsed since his solemn admission as a full member of the monastic community. A month later he celebrated his first mass at the Augustinian church on May 2. When he almost ran away in the midst of the service this was not a result of agitation or stage fright but of overpowering awe at the majesty of God. The master of novices or, as another report has it, the prior, was able to persuade Luther to complete the celebration of the mass.
There is no reason to play down this incident out of fear that the suspicion might arise that Luther was religiously unstable and subject to a morbid sense of sin. Nor had he—as Luther fans prefer to argue—fallen victim to typical medieval scruples that the Reformation discovery would later help him to overcome. No, Luther had undergone what would remain one of his fundamental religious experiences. Speaking about Isaac's prayer for his wife Rebecca, the old Luther, during his last set of lectures on the Book of Genesis, described the fear and trembling he had felt during his first mass:
""And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lord answered his prayer'" (Gen. 25.21). A prayer like this, which breaks through the clouds and reaches up to the majesty of God, is not easy. I, ashes, dust, and full of sin, speak with the living, eternally true God. This cannot but cause one to tremble, as I did when I celebrated my first mass.
Joyous faith, however, which rests on the mercy and the Word of God overcomes the fear of his majesty .
. and rises boldly above it." * "This cannot but cause one to tremble"—a sense of the "mysterium tremendum," of the holiness of God, was to be characteristic of Luther throughout his life. It prevented pious routine from creeping into his relations with God and kept his Bible studies, prayers, or reading of the mass from declining into a mechanical matter of course: his ultimate concern in all these is the encounter with the living God.
In his years as a monk there was indeed one additional factor: Luther knew himself to be unworthy to appear before this holy God. His restless monastic life, with its intense asceticism and mortification, was informed by a conviction held throughout the Middle Ages—that only by striving for perfection could one even hope to exist before God.
Luther's invitation to Johannes Braun to take part in the young priest's first mass in Erfurt indicates this very anxiety. When Luther there spoke of the holy God—holy in all His works, including the mass—who had called
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION him in his unworthiness to the priesthood, he was not indulging in empty phrases or pathological sentiments. Braun must immediately have understood Luther's request for support with his personal presence and prayers of intercession, so that with the liturgy of the mass Luther could, as he put it,
"make a sacrifice pleasant to God." ** The reform climate of the age had sharpened the sense of high dignity and responsibility of the priesthood.
The indignation which found expression in bitter stories about arrogant monks and lazy priests given to beer and women stemmed from the ideal of the "man of God," the priest who lives a "perfect" life, the monk who takes seriously his service at the altar, on the pulpit, and in the confessional.
This was the climate of thought in which Luther lived his monastic life, the incentive for his arduous attempts to follow the Augustinian rule to the letter. The ideal of true perfection was also to determine the position he was soon to take when Vicar General Staupitz initiated the final stage of the old dispute within the order. For the moment, however, Brother Martin was still unperturbed by the controversy over Observantism. Since the summer semester of 1507 he had been devoting himself to the study of theology under the guidance of Johannes Nathin, the senior Brother, who held the Augustinian chair of theology at the University of Erfurt. Despite intensive research, nothing of significance has as yet been discovered about this theologian who must have been a real influence on Luther in Erfurt. Have all his writings disappeared, or did he really never publish anything? All we know is that he received his master's degree in Erfurt thirty years before Luther was enrolled there and that he spent four to five years in Tubingen as a younger colleague of Gabriel Biel, holding survey lectures on the whole range of theological fields.
Luther thoroughly prepared himself for his first mass with the help of Biel's comprehensive exposition of the canon of the mass, published in 1488. Now, as a student at the theological faculty, he was introduced by Nathin to the best theological textbook of the time, Biel's dogmatics, which was also a survey of the history of Christian thought. The renowned nominalist from Tiibingen had, in the traditional medieval manner, laid out his voluminous tome as a commentary on the scholastic theological textbook known as the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Philipp Melanchthon later related that Luther had studied his
Biel so intensively that the Reformer was able to quote whole pages from memory. How assiduously he pored over Biel's commentaries can still be seen from the critical comments he wrote in the margins of his own copy in earlier and later years. Even when Luther was already distancing himself from theology as he had been taught it, he still recommended Biel as a fine guide for priests hearing confession.*"
THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG tas thtiniete — il mie we Hee abe Ved Me The Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg. After Luther's marriage in 1524, it was also his family home.
In April 1508 the budding theologian was already listed as a lecturer of his order next to such experienced Doctors as Paltz and Nathin.* It is unlikely that Luther had much personal contact with his senior colleague Johannes von Paltz. Though still an official member of the monastery, Paltz, after a clash with his brethren, left Erfurt in a huff in 1505 to become the prior of the monastery at Miihlheim near Koblenz. Despite his physical absence
Paltz was very much present through his widely read writings, which were characterized by a readily understandable, colorful type of medieval piety.
He was the spokesman for the monks, extolling the monastic way of life as the sure way to salvation."
But Johannes von Staupitz had already turned his attention to Luther. Not only did he encourage the young, striving monk theologically and spiritually, he also involved him in the turmoil of his daring Augustinian politics. Luther became a wanderer between two monastic factions—even literally so during the years before he obtained his doctoral degree in theology. First Staupitz summoned the Augustinian lecturer from Erfurt to Wittenberg for the winter semester of 1508-09 to lecture on Aristotle's Ethics, and instructed him to prepare for his doctorate in theology at the same time. In the autumn
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION SS SS ———— ee of 1509 Nathin, undoubtedly having discussed the matter with Staupitz, recalled Luther to Erfurt. This summons must have come as another surprise to Luther and most likely resulted from the death of a member of the Erfurt faculty. After rendering one and three-quarters years of service to his home monastery as a member of the theological faculty in Erfurt he was recalled by Staupitz to Wittenberg.
God's Prospective Adviser If we are to evaluate the events of these years, it is essential for us to recall the situation in 1509. Luther was in Erfurt again and thus committed to obedience to the monastery and prior there. If opposing instructions from the vicar general would give rise to a conflict, there could be only one legal recourse—an appeal to Rome. And this is precisely what happened. First
Staupitz succeeded in winning a victory in 1510 that the Observants might all be assumed to have rejoiced in: the Saxon province accepted Staupitz as their new provincial. It was an unprecedented development—the Conventuals had voluntarily chosen as their superior the leader of the "reformed" movement they had so bitterly opposed. There is no question that the personal union combining the posts of provincial and vicar general in one figure was a turn of events the majority of reform houses should have applauded.*
And yet it was precisely this marked success that led to the stormiest conflict Staupitz had to weather in his troubled years in office. The tragic element in this drama was that all concerned were taking their commitments seriously and pursuing goals consistent with their vows and views. Moralizing judgments scholars have also made in this case obscure the fact that the order in its quest for reform-in-unity had drifted into a hopeless situation.
Let us start with the perspective of Staupitz: Proles' successful expansion of the reform congregation led to a continuing war—interrupted by the occasional truce—with the provinces, which intensified whenever the congregation, with its power base in Saxony and Thuringia, encroached on Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, and the Rhineland up to Bruges and Antwerp. What happened in Gotha, where expelled monks pilloried the "saintly" Observants, did not remain an exception. The records are full of the shrill voices of bitter Conventuals or Observants, depending on which faction happened to have the upper hand at the moment and was able to "hold" or "capture" a monastery. The personal union Staupitz achieved was a first, important step toward putting an end to this state of affairs and effecting pacification if not THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG
I4I peace. Had this policy been carried out consistently, it might have led to the homogeneous reform of all the German provinces of the order. Indeed it could have shown the way to reform of all the monastic orders and hence strengthened the Church in a time of great need.
But there was more at stake than reconciliation of the two warring factions. The conflict of 1510 is so intriguing from the perspective of reform and Reformation history because, quite apart from issues of unity, it uncovers a real alternative which hitherto has been overlooked. The crucial question which drove a wedge into the reformed congregation was indeed a real'one: Is Observantism the way for monks, who strive for perfection and save themselves by withdrawing from a wicked world and by forming islands of obedience in a hopelessly secularized Church? Or are the Observant monasteries launching pads for reform of the whole Church, so that the whole life of perfection is directed toward mission and the salvation of others by preaching and ministering to the lay people?
There was complete agreement on the fact that the Church was in a state of sharp decline, down to its noblest institutions, the mendicant orders.
But the means for improvement were as hotly debated as the aims of a truly basic reform. Under Johannes von Staupitz this clash of principles became manifest: more than two-thirds of the congregation supported Staupitz and accepted his view that the proposed union with the province would further the Observantist cause, in that it was a way for the order to shoulder its task as nucleus of a general reformation. But seven monasteries, including the two most important ones in the congregation, Nuremberg and Erfurt, were convinced that Staupitz was putting the whole cause of reform in Germany at risk: the world once fled would break through the walls of the monastery.
They thus appealed to the general and sent two friars to Rome, one of them Martin Luther. Despite intensive research, the name and origin of the other cannot be established. Their protest mission proved abortive. They stayed in the Holy City for one month, but in early February 1511 were forced to set out on their approximately six-week journey home without having accomplished a thing. Under the date of January 1511 the curial records show the laconic entry: "The Germans have been forbidden to appeal from their vicar to the pope."
The question of obedience had thus been settled: Rome had ordered the monasteries to relinquish all resistance against Staupitz. At a chapter meeting in Jena in July 1511 Staupitz explained his solution, which now had
Rome's explicit approval. Speaking to representatives of the seven opposing monasteries, he pointed out that the personal union would not affect any of THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION
Wittenberg at the time of Luther's death. After a woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder. the congregation's privileges. The Observants would continue to elect their own vicar general, who would only need papal confirmation in accordance with their statutes. Then their vicar general would be appointed head of the Saxon province by the general of the order. The Conventuals were thus completely outmaneuvered: there should be no fear of infiltration or contamination by the non-reformed Augustinians.
How deep sentiments were running may appear from the fact that Staupitz's arguments could not bridge the gap: even a solution guaranteeing the Observants all the rights and clear predominance could not meet with general approval. The opposition of the seven monasteries, though weakened, was not crushed. Nuremberg, a majority in Erfurt, and the other five monasteries adhered to their position. Luther, on the other hand, sent to Rome at the beginning of the year to represent the opposition to Staupitz, now left its ranks and bowed to the decision of Rome.
The so-called resistant monasteries remained unmoved and succeeded in blocking the union. As Staupitz wanted to effect reform without jeopardizing unity, he had to give up his plans in view of the surviving resistance. From 1512 on there is no further mention of a union. Staupitz was as circumspect in healing the inflicted wounds as he had been prudent—if unsuccessful— in trying to reunify Conventuals and Observants. In the late summer of 1511
Luther was transferred from the Erfurt monastery to Wittenberg. With him went his friend from the student years, Johannes Lang, who advanced to become prior in Erfurt after he earned his doctorate at the end of 1516.
THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG / ey as sla} ae ee su — an But also the relationship to Nuremberg, whose monastery and municipal council had formed the other center of resistance, got Staupitz's special attention. It was placed on a totally new footing: a special kind of religious fraternity was created, modeled after humanist sodalities. A circle of erudite monks and burghers calling itself "Sodalitas Staupitziana," or Staupitz Society, was to become a focal point of Staupitz's influence and later a distribution center for Luther's writings. Staupitz confirmed his good relations with Nuremberg during Advent of 1516: day after day he ascended the pulpit to preach God's unerring grace to large crowds of appreciative citizens. The "Booklet" with a revised form of these sermons in Latin and German versions provides us with the most impressive document of his spiritual theology, a theology shaped by the Epistles of St. Paul and the works of On May 5, 1512, the regular chapter meeting of the congregation convened in Cologne and confirmed Staupitz in his office as vicar general.
A further decision concerned Luther: he was appointed deputy to his prior Wenzeslaus Linck and put in charge of the Wittenberg studium generale, thus being entrusted with the academic training of the younger members of the order. On October 19, five years before he posted his theses, Luther received his doctoral degree in theology and was accepted into the university senate three days later. Now the time had come to take over the task for which Staupitz had so long groomed him: the Lectura in Biblia, the chair of biblical theology, which Luther was to hold until his death.
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION Two IMPORTANT dates have to be added to complete the account of Luther's monastic career. At the chapter meeting in Gotha in May 1515
Luther was elected district vicar in charge of ten monasteries, including his own motherhouse in Erfurt, with its Augustinian studium the only study center of the Saxon congregation apart from Wittenberg. His correspondence documents how seriously he took this office. October 1518 marked a radical turning point in the life of this Augustinian who had been so long and deeply involved in all the affairs of his order. When after his unsuccessful negotiations with Cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg Luther ran the risk of being arrested on the instructions of the general of the order, Vicar General Staupitz
"consequently gave him dispensation from his vow of obedience. Although this cannot be equated with removal from the order and Luther thus continued to wear his habit, the stage in his life that had begun thirteen years before in the chapter house in Erfurt had now come to a close: it was obedience that had propelled him along the road to Wittenberg. To his vicar general he was indebted for the monastic platform that was to become the starting point for the Reformation of the Church. His Augustinian brethren were the ones who had not contented themselves with seeking their own perfection in Observantism, but had decided instead to fashion their monasteries into staging areas from which to reach out for the betterment of the Church and world.
Luther himself was convinced, however, that he owed the vicar general infinitely more: "Staupitz laid all the foundations." At this point we have reached the most critical juncture in Luther's theological career, a career we can from now on observe at first hand in his publications, which were to appear with breathtaking speed for the next thirty-five years. The effect of these writings was felt far beyond his order, with consequences that were more than once to alarm even their author.
Luther's most vicious antagonist, Johannes Cochlaeus, circulated the rumor that at some point after the chapter meeting in Jena Brother Martinus had betrayed his faction by changing sides and thus had "succumbed to his
Staupitz." By implication he suggests that this explains the summons to Wittenberg in the summer of 1511.*° And indeed there are still those who suspect that the doctorate was the reward for betrayal.
Is there any truth to the claim? Luther certainly did not "succumb to his Staupitz," he submitted to him, and only after the general of the order had definitely decided to support the vicar general. Luther's later criticism of the strict Observants, whom he ironically called "little saints" —one is reminded of the Gotha pamphlet—was trained at the brothers' selfish striving for saintliness without regard for the obedience they had pledged in their vows."
THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG Luther demanded obedience as district vicar and preached it as Reformer, when his subordination to the prior had become obedient faith in Christ. For Luther it is faith that fulfils the very first commandment: "Hang on to me, I will provide and help you in your hour of need"—thus the Large Cathechism of 1529. In this sense did the Reformation discovery transform monastic obedience into faith in Christ.
Yet there is a grain of truth in Cochlaeus' allegation insofar as Luther's steep climb in the academic world was due to the protection of Johannes von
Staupitz. Though the suspicion that Luther "succumbed" or was even bribed is unfounded, especially since Staupitz's decision to have him seek the doctorate stems from an earlier time, the fact remains that Staupitz took a special interest in Luther's career. At the beginning of the winter semester of 1508-09 the young lecturer and six other Augustinians were suddenly transferred to Wittenberg. Brother Martin did not even have time to notify his friend Braun of his departure. In Wittenberg Luther immediately had to begin lecturing—every day from two until three in the afternoon. He had been assigned the field of moral philosophy, to be taught in the via Gregorit.
He chose to leave no doubt that he would have much preferred to devote himself completely to biblical studies, for philosophy was for him a constant waiting for the real thing; he longed to get to the heart of the matter.** But this time there was no chance of a dispensation because the university statutes were clear: an instructor in the arts faculty, a student in the theological faculty. The first stage on the long road to the doctoral degree in theology was initiated under Johannes von Staupitz as dean on March g, 1509. Luther was now "admitted to the Bible" and from then on had to give his students brief elucidations of scriptural texts. The next step followed in the autumn, just before he was recalled to Erfurt: he acquired the rank of sententiarius, which entitled him to give lectures on the doctrines of the Church. Because he was ordered back to Erfurt and then sent afoot to Rome, his academic career was delayed by a full year, as a comparison with his friend and fellow
Augustinian Wenzeslaus Linck clearly shows: At the beginning Linck was only one month ahead, but in the end he received his degree thirteen months earlier than Luther.
Staupitz's decision to have Luther prepare for the doctorate must have included Linck as well; it was made well before the union dispute, quite likely in 1508. Staupitz pursued long-range personnel policies. In 1512 he could put these two handpicked men in charge of the Wittenberg monastery:
Linck—already a Doctor—as prior, and Luther—not yet a Doctor, but well on his way—as subprior and director of the studium generale.*°
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION Luther's course of action in the Observantism dispute was anything but servile and career-minded. He had been loyal to the Erfurt line in rejecting the plan for union. With this he had dared to stand and be counted against the vicar general's policies, although this was the man who had offered him an academic future. Only after all legal options had been exhausted and his party's appeal had been rejected by Rome did he side with Staupitz and thus show the vicar general the obedience that the latter now had the right to expect. This novel way of viewing Luther's behavior is completely in keeping with all we know about the Reformer's character. Throughout his life he was incorruptible and prepared to place principles before friendships. At such moments he counted neither his interests nor his inclinations.
Luther never maneuvered into higher positions of power. In fact he was given to doubt about his own abilities and was never fully convinced that he could truly fulfil people's expectations. As he remembered so well, under the pear tree in the garden of the Wittenberg monastery Johannes von Staupitz had to use all his eloquence to convince the master of arts that he should now also go for his doctorate in theology.
Luther argued that he was fully occupied with his Aristotle lectures and did not feel equal to the burden of studying theology at the same time: "I shall not survive that for long." Staupitz's reply: "The Lord has big plans.
He needs good and wise people who can assist Him in heaven as well. When you die, you will there have to be His adviser." *'
"I, too, was so foolish as to carry onions to Rome and bring back garlic." ® For a sixteenth-century peasant this was a bad deal: "shit for shillings."
Luther had hoped to gain spiritual strength through his visit to the Holy City, but he left Rome with mixed feelings. The Augustinian cause that had brought him there plays hardly any role in his later recollections; there is no suggestion there of an inner involvement in the issue he has to bring to the general's judgment—he simply does not mention the matter. His journey to Rome was a business trip, concerning the affairs of his order. His personal involvement concerned a different aspect of Rone: incredible opportunities of furthering the cause of salvation for others and himself as well.
The indulgences offered for sale in Germany were only poor imitations of what could be purchased in Rome. There was first of all the opportunity of a THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG general confession, which he wanted to seize to unburden his soul, making it as clean as it had been after baptism. But his own salvation was not his sole concern. He celebrated mass in Rome daily; at the altar of St. Sebastian, he once even said several in a single hour. He caught himself regretting that his parents were still alive: "for I would have loved to deliver them from purgatory with my masses and other special works and prayers." But priests from many European countries rushed to the altar with similar wishes in mind, so that it was difficult to put his pious intentions into action: "There is a saying in Rome: 'Blessed is the mother whose son celebrates a mass in S. Giovanni in Laterano on a Saturday.' How I would have loved to make my mother blessed there! But the waiting line was too long and I did not get a turn." *"
Because Luther wanted to free his grandfather—Lindemann or Heine Luder—from purgatory, he scaled the Santa Scala on his knees, with an Our Father on each step, for by praying this way it was said one could save a soul. When he had arrived at the top, however, skepticism overtook him:
"who knows if it is really true." °° Despite such misgivings on these steps he was nevertheless deeply awed by the rich variety of opportunities for an enterprising pilgrim to earn all sorts of merit. His flash of doubt is certainly not indicative of the emergence of a 'new skepticism' and the onset of the Enlightenment; his kind of skepticism rather arose from the conviction that God would not allow Himself to be pinned down in this way. It was this sense of reverence, typical of his faith and piety from the start, which stayed with him on the road to reformation.
His experiences in Rome were ambivalent. He was convinced he would be able to find salvation in abundance in this center of Christendom and was thus determined to make the most of the unique opportunities being offered everywhere. For Luther Rome was and would remain the glorious city of the steadfast martyrs, where the apostles Peter and Paul and the first Christians had witnessed to their faith with their blood. But noticing how much blasphemous behavior went on in the Holy City disturbed him deeply. "Where
God builds a church, the Devil puts a chapel next door" *'—would that this saying applied to Rome! But, as people put it, Rome was worse: "If there is a Hell, then Rome is built on it." This saying would later take on a new significance when the monk became the reformer, unmasking the pope's alliance with the Devil.°
Luther's criticism of Rome was not a result of his excommunication by the pope. Later he remembered clearly the shock and horror he had felt in View of the Roman Forum through the Titus Arch
THE ROAD TO WITTENBERG Rome upon hearing for the first time in his life flagrant blasphemies uttered in public. He was deeply shocked by the casual mockery of saints and everything he held sacred. He could not laugh when he heard priests joking about the sacrament of the Eucharist. In Erfurt his first mass had set him shivering with awe; now in Rome he had to stand by while servants of God thought it funny to blaspheme the most sacred words of institution: "Bread thou art and bread thou shalt remain; wine thou art and wine thou shalt remain." *
In their anger and outrage others, unquestioned in their loyalty to Rome— including Erasmus and Adrian Floriszoon (later Pope Hadrian VI)—could execrate the city and its priests. Luther's tone was more quiet but probably also more dismayed: "Well, I was a serious and pious young monk who was pained by such words." * The "pain" echoes again and again. The rampant immorality he saw and heard about shattered his ideal of Rome; the saying that was in the mouths of so many contemporaries also proved true for him: "The closer to Rome, the worse the Christians." But his belief that the Church in which he had been raised was the true Church remained unaffected.
Luther was by no means alone in his criticism. Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had journeyed to Rome five years earlier, wrote as unambiguously:
"With my own ears I heard the most loathsome blasphemies against Christ and His apostles. Many acquaintances of mine have heard priests of the curia uttering disgusting words so loudly, even during mass, that all around them could hear it." *
Ten years later Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, was advised against going to Rome—because of its stupendous depravity. It was Pope
Hadrian VI who officially admitted the deplorable state of affairs. He had his nuncio read out a confession of guilt to the Diet of Nuremberg in January
1523: "We know that for years there have been many abominable offenses in spiritual matters and violations of the Commandments committed at this
Holy See, yes, that everything has in fact been perverted. .
. The first thing that must be done is to reform the curia, the origin of all the evil." °° But it was not the moral decay, the vice and immorality at the center of the Church, that made Luther start to doubt whether the pope was indeed the vicar of Christ. Luther had been a "fierce papist," and for that reason later hesitated to publish his early writings, which were still "loyal to the pope."
His misgivings began with the indulgence controversy in 1518—19, when he had to recognize that God's grace was for sale in Rome. Even after the papal excommunication had driven a wedge between Wittenberg and Rome, the Reformer never claimed moral superiority. It is not the profligacy of the THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION
Church of Rome that divides us, "there are just as many bad Christians among us as under the pope."*" It was not Rome the proverbial cesspool of vice that gave birth to Luther the Reformer.
Luther's reminiscences of his trip to Rome are an invaluable aid to understanding why the Augustinian monk started on that lonely journey which would ultimately bring him to the reformation breakthrough. The question he posed at the top of the Santa Scala—"Who knows if it is true?"—was gradually transformed into the fundamental quest for the reliable basis of all
Church doctrine. Long after the event, in August 1582 Luther's son Paul reported a conversation with his father about the experiences in Rome: My
"dearest father" told me that when he was climbing up the Santa Scala and praying at every step he suddenly remembered the words of St. Paul: the just shall live by faith. Thus his prayers were answered and from then on he considered the Epistle to the Romans his "highest authority." %*
Historically the account is untenable; we know nothing of a "breakthrough experience" in Rome. And yet it is illuminating to see Luther's trek to Rome in light of later events. Any serious search for salvation is subject to the question: who knows if it is true? For Luther, God's promise became the only life-sustaining answer that could provide certainty: the just shall live by faith.
The Reformation Breakthrough Discoveries along the Way ighteen months after his return from Rome the master of arts and monk became a doctor of theology and professor in Wittenberg. From the critical perspective of his time Luther now joined the ranks of those stupid monks who endlessly argue about anything and nothing, who set themselves up as guardians of piety and proper doctrine, yet are unable to count their own toes. Learned theologians in his own country and ecclesiastical authorities in Rome at first dismissed the questions Luther raised as typical monkish bickering. There was as yet no way to predict that a man had appeared on the scene who was seeking the truth in the mazelike roads to salvation offered at the time.
It is crucial to realize that Luther became a reformer who was widely heard and understood by transforming the abstract question of a just God into an existential quest that concerned the whole human being, encompassing thought and action, soul and body, love and suffering. The search for salvation was not reserved for the intellect alone. Nor did Luther liberate himself from scholastic theology by retreating into his private self; it was not the battle of heart against head that drove him to raise his voice and take a more critical view of medieval theologians whom his own teachers still regarded as authorities. It was not that he found them too scholarly for the delicate business of faith, but rather that he did not find them scholarly enough. For Luther careful heed to the Scriptures was the only scholarly basis for theology and thus the reliable standard of truth.
Much in the development of this ascetic monk and Bible scholar seems obscure at first. As no writings by his professor of theology in Erfurt, fellow
Augustinian Johannes Nathin, have surfaced as yet, there is no way of knowing what Luther might have learned at his feet. Luther cannot have spent more than a few months living under the same roof with Nathin's predecessor, Johannes von Paltz, before the approximately sixty-year-old Paltz became prior of the Augustinian monastery in Mihlheim, where he died in THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION
March 1511. And Luther never devoted so much as a line to Paltz's vast oeuvre. He makes clear that for him there was only one Johannes in his monastic world, Vicar General Staupitz. He knew how great a debt he owed
Staupitz. Writing only a year before his own death, Luther praises him for "first of all being my father in this doctrine, and having given birth [to me] in.
When this "rebirth" took place is uncertain. Even Luther recognized the decisive turning points only in retrospect. As the exact dates are so hotly disputed, what can be said about the whole matter? At the end of the road to becoming a reformer stood the discovery that the Scriptures confirmed what he had sensed, sought, and seen with increasing accuracy by living with the God of the Scriptures. With the intellectual and emotional inquisitiveness that was always to characterize him, he analyzed the Scriptures to determine the truth of what Johannes von Staupitz had taught him. The only obstacle still in his way—as he put it in his 1545 Ruickblick, an autobiographical fragment referring to 1518 and 1519—was the central text in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: "For therein [in the Gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed" (Rom. 1.17).
A series of discoveries that proved only retrospectively to be steps in the same direction freed him from the fundamental notion common to all medieval schools of thought: the righteousness of God is the eternal law according to which He who is unattainably holy will judge all men on doomsday.
Then justice will be done, and punishment or reward meted out.
But did the Middle Ages know nothing about the righteousness that Christ grants as a gift? Had no one read the apostle Paul before? Was not Luther's answer that the faithful participated in Christ's righteousness identical with the answer that St. Augustine had given in Spirit and Letter? Thus twentieth-century critics have tried to dismiss Luther as "superficial" and an "ignoramus."
At best, they would, in their ecumenical generosity, grant that he had discovered "for himself" what had always been plain to every good Catholic.
These critics are right in that St. Paul was generally regarded as "the" apostle in the Middle Ages and that St. Augustine had been thoroughly assimilated in biblical commentaries. But both of them were always understood to say that the Church distributes Christ's righteousness like the talents that can be increased by hard work and good investment. Christ's justice does not make a man righteous before God; it puts him in the position to become righteous. At the Last Judgment the righteous God will de-