THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH cide if the faithful have used and truly done justice to Christ's gift. What is completely new about Luther's discovery is that he sees God's righteousness as inseparably united and merged with the righteousness of Christ: already now it is received through faith. That is the reason all the faithful will be able to stand the test: "That is the long and the short of it: He who believes in the man called Jesus Christ, God's only Son, has eternal life—as He himself says (John 3.16): 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life?2"* Why did Luther become more than an original thinker and a fascinating witness to a vanished world? He was able to become the Reformer of the Church because he was prepared to test his discovery against the Scriptures and ultimately to anchor it there. Only thus could it achieve lasting value for him and lay claim to validity for the whole Church. The "Gates of Paradise" were opened to him and a flood of knowledge swept over him once he had succeeded in grasping the passage (Rom. 1.17) in which St. Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk: "The just shall live by faith" (Habakkuk 2.4).
"I am not good and righteous, but Christ is."
Three Versions of the Central Reformation Discovery Now this alone is the right Christian way, that I turn away from my sin and want nothing more to do with it, and turn alone to Christ's righteousness, so that I know for certain that Christ's goodness, merit, innocence, and holiness are mine, as surely as I know that this body is mine. In his name I live, die, and pass away, for He died for us and was resurrected for us. I am not good and just, but Christ is. He in whose name I am baptized, receive the Holy Sacrament, study the Catechism—He will embrace us if only we trust in Him.'
The expression "righteousness of God," said D. Martinus, used to hit my heart as a thunderbolt. For when under the papacy I read: "Deliver me in thy righteousness" [Psalm 31.1], item: "in thy truth," I immediately thought righteousness was the grim wrath of God, with which he punished sin. I hated St. Paul with all my heart when I read: "the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel." But afterward, when I saw how it went on, that it is written: "The just shall live by faith," and also consulted St. Augustine on the passage, then I became glad, for I THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION learned and saw that the righteousness of God is His mercy through which he regards us and keeps us just. Thus was I comforted.'
As much as I had hated the expression "righteousness of God" before, I now loved and treasured it. Thus this passage from Paul became truly the gate to Paradise. Later I read Augustine's treatise "Spirit and Letter," where I unexpectedly found the same interpretation of God's righteousness as the righteousness with which God clothes us by making us righteous. And although it is still imperfectly formulated and does not clearly explain everything connected with God's imputation, I nonetheless was pleased to find him teaching the righteousness of God as that righteousness through which we are made righteous.°
It was a matter of life, not of thought, study, reflection, or meditation, but of life in the most comprehensive sense of the word. From now on the life of the Church and the life of Christians in the world would be the theme that guided and shaped all he did and wrote.
Luther's discovery was not only new, it was unheard-of; it rent the very fabric of Christian ethics. Reward and merit, so long undisputed as the basic motivation for all human action, were robbed of their efficacy. Good works, which Church doctrine maintained as indispensable, were deprived of their basis ir. Scripture. This turnaround touched on more than individual faith and righteousness; the totality of life was affected and thus had to be reconsidered. Throughout the coming years of confrontation and conflict, there was only one objective: to unfold the implications of this discovery and to see to it that they gained a wide hearing.
The Devil and the Cloaca Luther's autobiography, which appeared in 1545 as the preface to the first edition of his Latin works, has been the subject of exhaustive scholarly research. Nonetheless, Luther is not yet heard out, and his urgent admonition and warning has been missed: "Reader, be commended to God, and pray for the increase of preaching against Satan. For he is powerful and wicked, today more dangerous than ever before because he knows that he has only a short time left to rage."®
"Today" means that Luther not only discovered the Gospel but also roused the Devil, who is now raging terribly and gaining an unprecedented power of absolutely new satanic proportions.
THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH This is no longer the Devil who, in a triple alliance with "sin" and "world," seduces the voluptuous flesh of man against his better "self." The medieval poltergeist is virtually harmless in comparison with this adversary, who, armed with fire and sword, spiritual temptations and clever arguments, has now risen up against God to prevent the preaching of the Gospel. As long as the righteous God reigns far away in Heaven, waiting for the end of the world, the Devil, too, will remain at the edge of world history. But the closer the Righteous One comes to us on earth through our belief in Christ, the closer the Devil draws, feeling challenged to take historically effective countermeasures. The Reformation symbol of Christ's presence is not the halo of the saint, but the hatred of the Devil.
Transforming Luther into a forerunner of enlightenment means dismissing this warning of the Devil's growing superiority as a remnant of the Dark
Ages. But that would be to deprive Luther's life of the experience of the Devil's power, which affected him as intensely as Christ's. Take away the Devil and we are left with the Protestant citadel, the "better self," the conscience, which thus becomes the site of the Last Judgment, where the believer, confronted with the laws of God, acknowledges that he is a sinner and declares himself at the same time to be righteous by virtue of Christ's sacrifice.
It is precisely this conventional, conscience-oriented morality that man's innermost self struggles to fulfill, and that Luther, to the horror of all wellmeaning, decent Christians, undermined. The issue is not morality or immorality, it is God and the Devil. This patent encroachment on conscience desecrates the very thing that elevates man above the beasts—his knowledge of the difference between good and evil. The two great turning points of the Reformation age, the Lutheran and the Copernican, seem to have brought mankind nothing but humiliation. First man is robbed of his power over himself, and then he is pushed to the periphery of creation.
"The Spiritus Sanctus [Holy Spirit] gave me this realization in the cloaca." If this is the site of the Reformation discovery, man's powerlessness is joined by ignominy.' Must the trail of the Reformation be followed this far? There is a dignified way out: by cloaca Luther did not mean the toilet, but the study up in the tower above it. That, however, would be to miss the point of Luther's provocative statement. The cloaca is not just a privy, it is the most degrading place for man and the Devil's favorite habitat. Medieval monks already knew this,* but the Reformer knows even more now: it is right here that we have Christ, the mighty helper, on our side. No spot is unholy for the Holy Ghost; this is the very place to express contempt for the adversary through trust in Christ crucified.
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION Christ in the privy helping one to resist the Devil is certainly anything but genteel. In their propriety later centuries recount only how Luther hurled his inkwell across the room at Wartburg Castle. If the Devil must be mentioned, then at least with decorum. There is no truth in that polite legend, and it masks the actual situation. Bluntly quoting Gotz von Berlichingen
(immortalized by Goethe in this form: ". .
. er kann mich im Arsch lecken"
[Faust, act 3]), Luther attests to the birth of Christ in the filth of this world.'
The Son of God was truly born into the flesh, into the blood and sweat of man. He understood men because He experienced—to the bitter end— what it meant to be human.
As powerful as the Devil is, he cannot become flesh and blood; he can only sire specters and wallow in his own filth. The manger and the altar confront the Devil with the unattainable. Both the demonic, intangible adversary of God and the Son of God are present in the world, but only Christ the Son is corporeally present. Anyone who goes further, making the Devil into a living being, is superstitious. The cloaca is a revealing place. It unmasks the Devil's powerlessness as well as man's. Although far removed from pro- 'priety, it is also a place of faith, the Christian's place in life.
Thus the final sentence in Luther's Rickblick cannot be ignored without suppressing a facet of his belief. Wherever the Gospel is preached and bears fruit, the Devil is there to get in the way—that is his nature, "today" more than ever! Fear of the Devil does not fit in with our modern era, for belief in the Devil has been exorcized by attractive ideologies. But in the process our grasp of the unity of man has been lost: living with the real Christ in one's faith means being a whole person as opposed to an intellect that subscribes to a mere idea of Christ.
The Devil will readily help theologians to "elevate" the zealous, fighting, wrathful, loving God of Israel into the philosophical concept of an "Omnipotent Being."
For Luther the disembodiment of God into an impressive idea is one of the Devil's decisive misdeeds. Satan may be no doctor of theology, but he is very well trained in philosophy and has had nearly six thousand years to practice his craft. All the encouraging victories of God which occur prior to the Last Judgment melt under the Devil's glare. Arguments are of no help against the Devil; only Christ can come to our aid. Satan's wisdom is thwarted by the statement "the just shall live by faith" '-—faith not in an idea but in a God who, under the banner of the cross, is fighting for a world the Devil, too, is trying to win. Satan's power is not unlimited; he must stay within specified bounds, but until doomsday they encompass the whole world.
THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH The Devil's filth personified: the "birth" of the Pope and his curia There is a further misinterpretation of Luther's Rickblick, one deriving not from an omission but from a twisting of his words. Luther describes his strenuous road to the Reformation, warning twice—at the beginning and at the end of the account—that the first volume of his collected early writings is still deeply embedded in the papacy. "The reader must take into account that I am not one of those who suddenly, out of nowhere, achieve perfection and penetrate the Scriptures." "
A true theologian is made by life, with its tribulations and struggles, not by philosophizing and speculating. But despite this frequently expressed warning, the popular image of Luther ignores these experiences, struggles, successes, hopes, and fears, and reduces his development to two stages: first the desperate monk and then the self-confident Reformer from the moment i ee
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION $i, (dire ee ee eae a ee eS he—suddenly—grasped the true meaning of verse seventeen of the first chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
Even specialists in the field cannot escape the temptation of depicting the professor from Wittenberg as so much of an ivory-tower scholar that he seems to have been engaged in a systematic research program, as if all he had had to do was to arrange his various exegetical discoveries and after a brief analysis draw the appropriate conclusions that led him directly to the Reformation. Finding the correct approach or starting point is then viewed as the crucial factor, and Luther was evidently successful in that regard: he had to test scholasticism by the standard of St. Augustine and then to find his way from St. Augustine to St. Paul in order to acquire the key to the Scriptures.'? Thus armed, Luther was ready to enter the indulgence conflict and from there to proceed "logically" to a repudiation of the pontifical
But not even an ordinary academic career runs so smoothly, and not even Luther was in a position to advance according to plan. Discovering the Scriptures was a process fraught with surprises and not infrequently with perplexities. He kept finding new passages that spoke to him in the voice of the living God. Scholarship alone would neither have provided this challenge nor would it have been able to cope with it. The Divine Office and the confessional, meditating and reading the Bible, uncertainty and doubt, fasting and keeping vigil to the very limits of his physical powers—all these accompanied his first attempts to unseal the Scriptures for his students and to test the viability and persuasive power of his exegetical conclusions in academic disputations. The simultaneous struggle of religious experience, practical life, and scholarly penetration was intensified in the beginning conflict over the Church. Luther once mentioned that St. Augustine was only able to testify to the apostle Paul's message of the gift of Christ's righteousness because of the violent provocation to which he was subjected in his clash with the Pelagians, the opponents of God's grace.' Here personal experience is speaking.
With Augustine against Aristotle The name of Augustine of Hippo, one of the Church Fathers, is the first definite clue to Luther's development. In 1889 and 1890 serendipitous finds in the Ratschul Library in Zwickau provided insights into Luther's beginnings that had hitherto been hidden from scholars and would not have been
THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH so comprehensively available even to his own contemporaries. What came to light were a number of books Luther had studied as a young monk. They were filled with his own underlinings and marginal notes.
Thanks to the Zwickau discovery we can date his study of Augustine as far back as the autumn of 1509. One of the surviving books from the Augustinian library he used in Erfurt is an edition of various writings by Augustine, printed under the title Aurelii Augustini opuscula plurima in Strasbourg in 1489. Luther had noted on the title page: "St. Augustine died in the year of our Lord 433. Now, in the year 1509, that is 1076 years ago." '* The date of death is incorrect—Augustine died in 430—and shows how poor Luther's knowledge of historical facts still was. But the comments he wrote in the margins of the book in 1509 prove that by studying Augustine he had discovered the contrast between the Church Father and Aristotle, and had begun to work out a theological position of his own.
The marginal notes do not yet register all the implications of the contrast; they probably only dawned on him gradually. Not until the great disputation against scholastic theology in September 1517 was this early interest in Augustine to bear fruit. That was where the battle cry "contra Modernos,"
"contra Aristotelem"—against the moderns, against Aristotle—could be heard.'® But the early notes on Augustine already point out the confusion that arises when the boundaries between scholarship and wisdom, between human speculation and divine revelation, are no longer respected. Then theology and philosophy suffer: "Augustine can even use reason to prove that the whole of philosophy is foolishness. Imagine what that means!" '°
At about the same time, meaning in the 1509-10 winter semester in Erfurt, Luther annotated Augustine's two most extensive late works, De
Trinitate (The Trinity) and De Civitate Dei (The City of God), about the inner nature of God and the history of the Church. These comments, too, end in critical dismay: "I find it more than astonishing that our scholars can so brazenly claim that Aristotle does not contradict Catholic truth." "'
Luther immediately integrated what he read in Augustine into the survey lectures in theology he was preparing at the same time. He inveighed against the scholastic doctors, using the Holy Scriptures more pointedly and systematically than had hitherto been the case. Philosophy can never grasp man's true nature, namely that he is God's creature.'* It cannot comprehend the meaning of the biblical definition of the soul as "the image of God"
(Gen. 1.27): "There I rely on Scripture against all rational arguments and say with Paul: If an angel—that means a Doctor of the Church—descended from heaven and taught differently, he should be damned." " i THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION ee
What an unknown monk in an inconspicuous monastic cell in Erfurt was committing to paper here would one day lead him to the historic pronouncement on the political stage of the Diet of Worms: "Here I stand, God help me, amen"—a statement that was not an affirmation of himself but an expression of his loyalty to the Scriptures, a loyalty conducive from the very start to generating clashes, even with the authorities. Even if an emperor came down from heaven!
The question of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin was soon being cited by the humanists to demonstrate the stupidity of the scholastics. Luther, too, took an interest in this seemingly abstruse problem, not in order to solve it but in order to point out that faith dwelt in a realm of its own. The question is not as ridiculous as the answer: as with the soul, all we know about angels is what is revealed in Scriptures: "Everything that is added to faith is certainly only imaginative speculation" °—unfounded and thus uncertain, pure invention."!
This is an adumbration of the principle of the new Wittenberg theology that Luther would formulate seven years later "against the whole of scholasticism": "The whole of Aristotle is to theology as shadow is to light." * Contemporaries immediately recognized the import of the attack, as Aristotle, who had become academic theology's great authority in the course of the thirteenth century, had provided the terminology and categories used to establish the central concepts of the Holy Scriptures and Church doctrine:
God is the "prime mover"; the soul, as "form," determines the human being; justification takes place through the "infusion" of "the power of grace"; the sacrament of the mass transforms the "substance" of bread and wine; man is "free" to decide between good and evil. Gaining a critical grasp of all these basic notions and finding new biblical terms for them was to cost
The knowledge that there was an infinite, qualitative distance between Heaven and earth became an established principle for Luther as early as 1509: all human thought, as noble, effective, and indispensable as it might be to solve problems in the world, does not suffice to fathom salvation because it cannot reach Heaven. Questions of faith must be resolved through the Word of God or not at all. The temptation—or compulsion—to sanctify the words of man and believe in them is satanic. When God is silent, man should not speak; and what God has put asunder, namely Heaven and earth, man should not join together.
Thus not even Augustine, especially Augustine the neo-Platonist, could become the new, infallible authority, because that would merely have been
THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH replacing one philosophy with another, substituting Plato for Aristotle.
Augustine was the exemplary scriptural exegete, who, since 1509, had given Luther the means to demonstrate the extent to which theology had degenerated into a mouthpiece for Aristotle.
The alternative is clear: whatever transcends the perception of empirical reality is either based on God's Word or is pure fantasy." As a nominalist
Luther began making a conscious distinction between knowledge of the world and faith in God," but through Augustine he realized that his school lagged far behind its own basic principle: Scripture was being violated by philosophy.
Prior to 1509 Brother Martin had been given "not Augustine but Scotus" to read." Augustine was not a compulsory subject of study under the Augustinian rule. Thus, as Luther wrote in October 1516, one year before he posted his theses, his enthusiasm for Augustine did not stem from loyalty to the order: "I do not defend Augustine because I am an Augustinian; before I began reading his works he meant nothing to me."
But once he had discovered Augustine he was so enthralled by all the new ideas he encountered | there that he did not read Augustine's works, he "devoured" them.' This enthusiasm bespeaks the joy of discovery, not an uncritical attitude.
Thus the year 1509 prepared the way for an unusual medieval alliance between Augustinianism and nominalism. Before Luther recognized the Church Father as a fighter against the "enemies of God's grace" and came to appreciate him asa reliable interpreter of the apostle Paul, the nominalistically trained magister could already welcome him as an ally in the battle against philosophy overstepping its bounds.
The First Lectures in Wittenberg We must keep in mind that Luther had already put forward the Holy Scriptures as a program and the decisive standard of faith prior to his trip to Rome in 1510. Looking back on his long journey, Luther mocked himself as a "mad monk." But the "mad" pilgrim was not nearly as naive as he appeared in retrospect. Luther's ironic recollection is, however, a reminder that criticizing scholasticism, even in connection with central problems, did not yet constitute a Reformational turning point. The pursuit of the righteousness of God did not end in the discovery of the ' 'Scriptural principle"; it really only began there.
Luther was twenty-nine when he was offered the chair of biblical theology THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION in Wittenberg as Johann von Staupitz's successor. The lectures he held on the Psalms from 1513 to 1515 were probably his first as a full professor. The independence that had already been so striking in 1509 once again came to the fore. Luther probed one text after the other, hour after hour, trying to get through the words to the Word. The thrilled expectation of discovering
God's Word in the Scriptures could become reality only through the interpreter's inner dedication in prayer and meditation combined with intensive scholarly work on the text.
Arriving at indisputable theological positions entails more than overcoming inner resistance; there are textual ambiguities to deal with as well. Careful analysis reveals how extensively Luther used the scholarly aids at his disposal and studied the biblical exegeses of the Church Fathers and medieval authors."* His efforts to learn Hebrew in order to get as close to the original text as possible were no less thorough, though the Vulgate, the Latin version of the Bible, remained his exegetical basis throughout his life. And this was as it had to be, for a doctor of theology had a commitment to the Church, not to himself. Because of the public responsibility of the office, the familiar text had to be used to render theological results generally intelligible.
The crucial obstacle to understanding the Scriptures, however, is man's inner resistance to the Word of God. The objective scholarly interpreter must become an affected listener. For Luther that meant first becoming a sinner, confessing his true condition, for the Word of the Scriptures unmasks all men as sinners (Rom. 5.12) and thus as enemies of God (Rom.
5.10). That makes "humility" so important. Exercising humility means justifying God—that is Luther's unprecedentedly bold claim. The justification of God means conceding the truth of His verdict: all men are sinners. Admitting God is right is what Luther calls the "obedience of faith" that must precede all righteousness by faith.
This obedience is the central theme of his first course of lectures on the Psalms: by judging himself and humbly submitting to God's judgment here, man anticipates God's Last Judgment. It is still the monk who is the prototype of the true Christian as long as he corresponds to the traditional ideal and is truly "in the condition of repentance," without wanting to improve on God's judgment. Thus the very thing Luther does not mean is "sinner," yes, but in my humility just a bit righteous too.
Despite the monastic orientation of his theology of humility and despite the fact that his students were primarily monks, Luther never lost sight of the Church as a whole: exegesis is done in the service of preaching.
Luther's handwritten interlinear commentary to psalms 16.12—17.34 (Vulg.). Page from the manuscript of his first lectures on the Book of Psalms (1513-15).
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION One of the central issues of religious life at that time was the question of repentance, confession, and punishment. That Luther made this particular topic his own is evidence that his theology was rooted in the preaching and ministry of the Church. Luther opposed self-complacency and "slaving away" at good works as well as the breathless pursuit of self-justification when he taught repentance as the basic form of every Christian's life and not just an occasional emergency measure for the sinner. It was not a tedious
"Church obligation" to which a Christian had to subject himself at least once a year; it was the constant profession of humility: only God is righteous.
The ideas Luther developed in his two major courses of lectures, the first on the Psalms and the second directly afterward on the Epistle to the Romans, are summarized in the first two of his ninety-five theses of 1517:
1. When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent" [Matt. 4.17], he willed the entire life of the faithful to be one of repentance.
2. This word is misunderstood if it is taken to refer to the sacrament of penance that is received from time to time."
At the beginning of 1516 his two-semester lecture course on the Epistle to the Romans—November 1515 to September 1516—had probably reached chapter three. In his marginal notes to verse twenty he interpreted the righteousness of God as he was to describe in 1545: a liberating discovery.*° Although he did not yet appreciate all the consequences, the conclusion he immediately drew was that being a sinner, man could achieve nothing before God but could be justified by grace alone: "ergo sola gratia justificat." *
This grace could be obtained only by faith—"sola fide"—trusting in the Word of Christ." The voice of the now "Reformation" exegete still sounds unpracticed, and a series of discoveries still remain to be made. The experience of inner contrition, what Luther called "plowing oneself," was still the precondition for justification by faith.*
Not until the beginning of 1518 would faith be understood as such great trust that the Christian as confessant could and should rely totally on the word of absolution. Henceforth he was encouraged to disregard his inner state; the last precondition had been eliminated.**
The printed commentary to St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians completes the development Luther outlined in the autobiographical Riickblick (his recollection of his Reformation breakthrough) with which he prefaced his collected works.* It is the year 1519; the Reformation "discovery" of justification by faith has been clearly expressed and worked out. Humble selfjudgment has, it is true, not been eliminated, but now it is understood as a THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH condemnation of the conscience: as a total sinner, I can only rely on God, who has committed Himself to my salvation.** The new righteousness cannot be proven because it "is not based on our works: it is founded on the promise of God, who does not lie." *'
Faith is no longer chiefly obedience, it is trust in the reality of God's unshakable love. God is just because He can be taken at His Word and will remain true to His promise.*
Luther's own Riickblick furnishes the clearest account of how he succeeded in understanding the central sentence: "For [in the Gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed" (Rom. 1.17).
I hated the expression "righteousness of God," for through the tradition and practice of all the doctors I had been taught to understand it philosophically, as the so-called "formal"—or, to use another word,
"active" —righteousness through which God is just and punishes sinners and the unjust. But I could not love the righteous God, the God who punishes. I hated him. .
. I was very displeased with God, if not in secret blasphemy, then certainly with mighty grumbling, and said: should it not be enough for miserable sinners eternally damned by original sin to be oppressed by all sorts of calamity through the law of the Ten Commandments? Must God add suffering to suffering even through the Gospel and also threaten us with His righteousness and His wrath through the Gospel too? .
. 1 pondered incessantly, day and night, until I gave heed to the context of the words, namely: "For [in the Gospel] is the righteousness of God revealed, as it is written: "The just shall live by faith."" Then I began to understand the righteousness of God as a righteousness by which a just man lives as by a gift of God, that means by faith. I realized that it was to be understood this way: the righteousness of God is revealed through the Gospel, namely the socalled "passive" righteousness we receive, through which God justifies us by faith through grace and mercy.
. Now I felt as if I had been born again: the gates had been opened and I had entered Paradise itself."
This terse, vivid account makes it all too easy to overlook the new discoveries Luther was continually making both before and after the great turning point in his life. Luther's theology cannot be reduced to a single point; his work was invigorated and stimulated by the joy of discovery. But this joy was more than mere intellectual satisfaction because questions of life and death were at stake. Between 1513 and 1519 he experienced a series of breakTHE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION throughs of this kind, although none as significant as that of the understanding of God's righteousness and justification by faith.
Yet, as Luther pointed out at the beginning of his professorial career and at the end of his life, all his discoveries could not exhaust the wealth of the Scriptures. In his early Psalm lectures he said: "If you, O human being, cannot grasp some scriptural passage completely and are capable of unveiling the concealed truth only in part—be it as large as it may—then know that there is'witness there that points past you and will only be revealed to you or others in the future." *° One might assume that this was a beginner exercising the humble restraint befitting a monk and that the expert, the Reformation
Luther, would overcome it. But that was not the case. A note in Latin was found next to Luther's deathbed; he wrote it two days before he died:
No one can understand Virgil in his Bucolics and Georgics unless he has spent five years as a shepherd or farmer. No one understands
Cicero in his letters unless he has served under an outstanding government for twenty years. No one should believe that he has tasted the Holy Scriptures sufficiently unless he has spent one hundred years leading churches with the prophets. That is why: 1. John the Baptist, 2.
Christ, 3. the Apostles were a prodigious miracle. Do not profane this divine Aeneid, but bow to it and honor its vestiges.
This is followed by the statement "We are beggars" in German, and in Latin again, "That is true." *!
A doctor of theology for thirty-four years, practiced in the translation and exegesis of Scripture—notwithstanding all this experience, he had to admit that. he was overwhelmed by the depth and wealth of the Scriptures, which no man would ever fathom in a single lifetime.
In view of Luther's life-long struggle to clarify the Scriptures in questions crucial to salvation, his "last words" may sound like a confession of resignation. This, however, is misleading. The point is rather that to study the Scriptures is like a journey—full of surprising discoveries. He once compared his scriptural studies to a walk through a forest: "There is hardly a tree in this forest that I have not shaken and obtained apples or picked berries from." " Certainly his statement did not lack pride, but neither did it make any claim to his having finished with the Scriptures.
During his last, ten-year(!) course of lectures on the Book of Genesis (1535-45), Luther took another extended walk through the woods and gathered the fruits of his roamings into concentrated summaries of his theology. Although these lectures deserve to be used as an introduction to THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH
Jacob's dream (Gen. 28. 10ff,): the dream becomes reality. Woodcut from Luther's translation of the Old Testament, 1523.
Luther's world of faith, they have nearly fallen into oblivion owing to the prevailing interest in the young Luther as well as to the complex history of how they have come down to us.
The theme throughout is the wild rage of the Devil, who seeks unceasingly to destroy the Son of God everywhere: "He is his target," * because His birth and death are the agents of divine redemption. The Devil's battle against Christ makes the "walk through the woods" necessary and divests it of its arbitrariness. Luther's single-mindedness is demonstrated in his interpretation of the story of Jacob's ladder. Jacob was fleeing from his brother Esau. One night he dreamt of a ladder that reached into Heaven, with angels of God ascending and descending it (Gen. 28.12—14). Luther was able to illustrate the whole of his Reformation theology by means of Jacob's dream at Beth-el: through God's Word and spirit, Christians are led up to Heaven and, in their faith, united with Christ. Christ Himself, however, descends to lead Christendom. The ladder connecting Heaven and earth is the incarnation of God; it is what the Devil hates most and is perpetually fighting against. The Devil wants to tear the faithful away from Christ, their ladder to Heaven."
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION Luther had long been a master in finding ever new and graphic ways of combining the various realms of God's work—in Christ, in justification, in the Creation—into a single vision. Now the kingdom of the Devil had received sharp contours as well. Thirty years earlier "sin, world, and Devil" had still formed the traditional medieval phalanx of evil. To escape the Devil one had had to avoid the world and seek salvation where there was no room for sin—most safely at a monastery. But now the Devil was the opponent of the world created by God, seeking to destroy all the forces involved in protecting God's creation: family and economy, state and Church. Luther's walk had taken him out of the monastery and into the world.
"Today you have the Bible"
The objection has been raised that as an exegete Luther was not scholarly enough and that his erudition could not compare with that of an Erasmus or a Melanchthon. The Reformer's biblical exegeses are accused of being
"overrun by dogmatism and edification." * Luther would have protested vehemently against being compared with Erasmus: scriptural exegesis is far more than philology and historico-critical method. He would, however, have acknowledged Melanchthon's erudition, and in fact did: apart from the Holy
Scriptures, Melanchthon's textbook of theology, his famous Loci communes, was the most important work for a Christian to read. "I can find no book under the sun in which the whole of theology is so excellently arranged."
Luther was extremely critical when it came to judging the value of his own books. The commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1531-35), the exposition of the Book of Deuteronomy (1523), and his sermons on four chapters of the Gospel of John (1528-29) he thought worth preserving because they were his only works really to contain theological teachings. He found the rest of his writings interesting solely from a historical point of view; they enabled a reconstruction of his laborious quest and the course of the whole conflict. The person who wants to become a theologian today, he wrote, has
"a major advantage: he has the Bible." *'
Luther did not simply mean the books of the Old and New Testaments; they had, after all, long been familiar and—at least to theologians—freely accessible. Luther was pointing out that laymen now demanded that theologians furnish biblical grounds for their statements. They had to be experienced in Scripture-based argumentation and to have acquired criteria to assess the relative significance of various biblical passages. The conversance
THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH with the Bible that Luther had attained and exercised was what he wanted to pass on to posterity.
Luther laid his exegetical foundations in his first lectures on the Psalms and continued to perfect his interpretations throughout his life. As a good nominalist he first concentrated on the manner of expression characteristic of Scriptures; this enabled him to acquire a grasp of their particular subject matter on the basis of linguistic usage ** and obviated the alien mediation of Greek philosophy. His criticism of scholasticism did not culminate in the common reproach that its line of argument was too formal, logical, or dialectical. What made his own tradition suspect to him was its belief that Aristotle's philosophy offered a timeless, comprehensive system of interpretation that even provided a key to the Scriptures. But the Holy Ghost has
His own language; one must become His student, learn to spell, and then, going out from the individual word, gradually acquire the whole vocabulary.
A single misconstrued word can distort the sense completely. The concept of the "righteousness of God" is a striking example and not an exception;
Luther had to toil away at other passages with equal intensity before he could penetrate the meaning of the words.
Luther knew that a good translator had to be bilingual. "Spelling" did not imply a slavishly literal, word-for-word rendering; it was the thorough comprehension of the linguistic usage of the Scriptures. That is the secret of the originality and power of the Luther Bible. Command of one's own language and the ability to use it to its best effect presupposes listening to the way the common people speak: "One must ask the mother at home, the children in the street, the man at the market, and listen to how they speak, and translate accordingly. That way they will understand and notice that one is speaking
One of the Saxon princes once asked Luther to explain what the wellknown scholastic "ways" or schools and the "school conflict" were actually about. Luther provided him with a very lucid answer, not missing the opportunity to interpret the "way" of Wittenberg as a reformed "via moderna."
What linked the "terminists," the old and new nominalists, was attentiveness to linguistic usage.
"Terminists" was the name of one sect of the university to which I, too, belonged. They take a stand against the Thomists, Scotists, and Albertists, and were also called Occamists after Occam, their founder.
They are the very latest sect and the most powerful in Paris, too. The dispute was over whether "humanitas" [humanity] and words like it
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION meant a common humanity, which was in all human beings, as Thomas and the others believe. Well, say the Occamists or terminists, there is no such thing as a common humanity, there is only the term "homo" [the concept "human being"] or humanity meaning all human beings individually, the same way a painted picture of a human being refers to all human beings.
But your Princely Highness must [know]: in these matters those men are called terminists who speak of a thing in terminis propriis [appropriate terms] and do not interpret words in an alien and wild way; and in this way it is called reality speaking of the thing. When I speak to a carpenter, I must use his terms, namely angle bar and not crooked bar, axe and not hatchet. So one should also leave the words of Christ alone and speak of the sacrament in suis terminis [his terms], ut "hoc facite" [as "that does"] should not mean "sacrificate" [sacrifice], item "corpus"
[likewise, "body"] cannot mean "of both kinds," as they now torment the words and want to stray from the clear text.°° But becoming a "modern" terminist is only one side of translating. First one must become a student of the Holy Spirit and listen with care to His language. Despite all the differences between the Old and New Testaments, between the Evangelists Luke and John, between Paul and Peter, the Holy
Scriptures are homogeneous in that they testify to the God who is unknown to philosophers. What kind of a God can it be who has to do battle against the Devil, who suffers and is crucified?
The reproach is plainly directed at far more than just "Aristotle" or "scholasticism." Since the Fall every man has been a philosopher, for he has taken his experience of the world and his knowledge of reality—which he has succeeded in describing scientifically—as a standard by which to measure God. But the intellect does not suffice to grasp the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob; He must be apprehended through the Scriptures. The "God" created by man is a false god of his own making.
Even before Luther mastered Greek he took pains to determine the sense of certain key words like "spirit," "strength," or "repentance" in Greek. As laborious as the work was, the only way he could get to the core of the New
'Testament was by cutting through the historico-philosophical and -legal tradition that had for centuries been linked with the Latin "spiritus," "virtus," or "poenitentia." He discovered the verbal structure typical of the Hebrew language: when the Old Testament speaks of "the Word of the Lord," an action, namely the action accomplished by the Word, is implied at the same time.
THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH The great linguistic event of his time, the rediscovery of the original biblical languages, provided the means to probe the Vulgate and take the first steps toward modern Bible scholarship. Luther seized the opportunity as soon as it arose: the moment Erasmus' edition of the Greek New Testament became available in Wittenberg in the middle of the summer semester of 1516, he immediately set about familiarizing himself with this new tool, so shocking for Latin-oriented Christians. While he was engaged in the exegesis of chapter nine of the Epistle to the Romans, he drew—the word
"write" would be inappropriate—Greek letters in his lecture manuscript for the first time to point out a translating error in the Latin Bible.
Scholars may, and must, argue about whether humanistic or nominalistic impulses were at work here. But Luther's conviction that the Scriptures contained something radically new and contradictory to man's expectations indisputably went far beyond either of the two movements. Luther the Reformer could still recall an incident far back in his days as a university student. Either at the Erfurt university library or his college library he had chanced upon a Bible chained to a lectern, as valuable folios generally were.
He opened the unfamiliar volume to the First Book of Samuel and elatedly read the story of Hannah and how her son Samuel was chosen to be a "man of God." At that time he had already wished that he could possess and study such a Bible one day.*'
During those early years everything was still taking its preestablished course according to the plans of the father and the son, yet the student's "curiosity" about the Scriptures had already been awakened. Why this curiosity, this formative factor in Luther's future development, arose defies scholarly explanation.
"Today you have the Bible," source of life, God's original testimony, and thus both foundation and standard of all ecclesiastical authorities, be they
Church Fathers, councils, popes, or learned doctors. Scripture and Church belong together, but not as though the Scriptures were the letter and the teaching Church the spirit that breathes life into it. The Church is the creation of the Word, but the Word can never be the creation of the Church.
The Scriptures reveal the Word. But that is precisely why they are not the book of truths that might constitute a complete, irrefutable textbook of theology, and why they do not need any further truths added, for example, in the form of new dogmas. The Bible contains only one truth, but it is the decisive one: "that Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for the sake of our sins, and was resurrected for the sake of our righteousness." *"
Whether from a medieval or a modern perspective, this is a revolutionary reduction and concentration of faith. Comprehensive medieval systems and THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION remarkable speculative models of the modern age seem to know far more and have far more to say about God than the Scriptures. Luther's reply to Erasmus applies to both: "Through the Crucified One, the Christian knows everything he has to know, but he now also knows what he cannot know." *
Concentrating on Christ crucified was directed against the tangle of medieval. theology and was at the same time an attempt to reunite what the foundation of the theological faculties at the universities had divided. The flourishing monastery schools of the twelfth century, with their combination of scholarship and piety, had not been able to hold their own in the face of the new competition. But for Luther this model of theological study in the liturgical context of prayer and meditation was the ideal and remained so even after he had renounced his monastic vows (November 1521). Everything the new disciplines required in the way of linguistic and historical scholarship needed to be incorporated into this system of studies. The repeated reforms at the University of Wittenberg were endeavors to recreate the monastery school model, but—complained Luther—they never succeeded. His repeated appeal to use monastic endowments to found schools for boys and girls of all classes are well known. The Reformer reminds us again and again that the old monasteries, with their combination of piety and scholarship, "have now been caused by the Devil to fall into a deplorable state, so that they are dens of iniquity .
. to the detriment of Christendom." ™* The reproach that Luther was a scholar without true erudition who jeopardized the objective exegesis of the Scriptures as a result of his "edifying interests" is justified only—if at all—from the standpoint of a complete separation of faith and scholarship. But where the Holy Ghost affects the reader's rational faculties and seeks to win his will, where the Scriptures are holy because they are life-giving, "edification" and "biblical exegesis" cannot be played off against one another without ruining both. Yet that is exactly what happened.
A further factor must be taken into account to understand Luther as an interpreter of the Word and defender of the "scriptural principle." The Bible is not a book, it is a whole library of writings extending across two millennia. Despite its variety, however, there is a center from which and toward which it must be interpreted. Luther's definition of this center was soon very popular among Evangelical theologians: "What proclaims Christ" is the point of reference for exegesis. Luther himself clarified this eloquent formula: what impels you to Christ crucified is at the heart of the Scriptures—the apostle Paul's principle in the First Epistle to the Corinthians:
"We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock and unto the Greeks foolishness" (1 Cor. 1.23).
THE REFORMATION BREAKTHROUGH Since a number of Luther scholars have begun dating the Reformation breakthrough relatively late, in the vicinity of spring 1518, the first Psalm lectures (1513-15) have stopped being of central interest. This is warranted insofar as nothing of The Freedom of a Christian as a consequence of justification by faith can yet be felt in these lectures. Luther apologizes in his 1545
Rickblick: the gates of Paradise were opened to him much later. But the early lectures on the Psalms are irrefutable proof that Luther expected to see the Word of God crystallize out of the words of the Scriptures, a concept that goes far beyond the establishment of a scriptural principle. The precept that the Scriptures alone formed the foundation of theology was already familiar to medieval scholastics, who provided it with a methodological basis and argued about the consequences the principle would have for ecclesiastical tradition. But the scriptural principle could become scriptural practice only once the Bible was discovered to be more than a collection of various kinds of truths and proofs, when it was recognized as having its own message, one which decided about life and death, and thus had to be interpreted out of itself, out of its center.
The risks involved in paying careful heed to the Scriptures, in finding the thin line between using and abusing, were described unmistakably by Luther in a sermon he preached in 1515 on the anniversary of his baptism:
Whoever wants to read the Bible must make sure he is not wrong, for the Scriptures can easily be stretched and guided, but no one should guide them according to his emotions; he should lead them to the well, that is to the cross of Christ, then he will certainly be right and cannot fail.°°
Designating the cross of Christ as the standard of exegesis is evidence of Reformation decisions made prior to the turning point.
In the first ten years, he recounts, he read the Bible through twice a year.
His growing understanding of the Scriptures led to differences over correct interpretations, then to the theologians' and prelates' dispute, and finally to the conflict in the Church. The clash of opinions had not been provoked by the printed pages alone. The Reformation reached the people because of a surprising conclusion Luther drew from the scriptural principle he had known for so long: the Scriptures must be preached! Because heresies threatened the living apostolic message, it had to be recorded in a book to protect it from falsification. Preaching reverses this process of conservation again, allowing the Scriptures of the past to become the tidings of the present.
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION Luther's opponents ridiculed So the Bible is a necessary evil! It is necessary because without it man's spirit will claim to be holy and there will be no way of proving him wrong.
Scripture becomes "evil" when, as a hollow pontifical document, it petrifies in holiness instead of being publicly proclaimed in the Church as the living
Word. The Gospel has been committed to lifeless paper; fresh words can transform it into glad tidings again.® The Reformer Attacked
The Persecution of Christians "Today" otal immersion in the Scriptures is a dangerous undertaking, for the unprecedented Word of God is anything but "credible." Because the Word contradicts common sense and morals, it gives rise to doubts and fears.
These are the tribulations, the diabolical temptations that plagued Luther throughout his life. They are so integral a part of his nature, of his personality structure, that we must go beyond
Luther the author to come face to face with Luther the man. The Devil's assaults are well aimed and effective, striking the victim down, robbing him of all joy in God and man, producing temporary loathing for God and himself. Luther was sometimes assailed by such spiritual torments for one or even two days. The alarming thing about this state is that the days seem to last an eternity. There is no way out, no end in sight.
In his Grosser Katechismus (1529), Luther places Satan's attacks through temptation at the core of his explanation of the sixth petition of the Lord'
Prayer: "And lead us not into temptation." His elucidation revises the medieval notion that the Devil leads every man into temptation through his carnal instincts.
"Not to lead us into temptation" means that God gives us the strength and power to resist. But it does not mean that the spiritual distress is removed and done away with. No one can avoid temptation and enticement as long as we live in the flesh and have the Devil around us; and this will not change: we must bear tribulation, yes, even be in the midst of it. But that is why we pray not to fall into and drown in it. That is why it is different to feel spiritual distress than to accept temptation and say
"yes" to it. All of us must feel it, though it may not be of the same type for everyone, but greater and heavier for some: youth is primarily tempted by the flesh, then those who are adult and aging by the world; but the others, those who deal with spiritual matters, that is, strong
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION Christians, by the Devil. But as long as this feeling goes against our will and we would rather be rid of it, it cannot harm anyone; for if one did not feel it, it could not be called temptation. But accepting it means that one hands over the reins to temptation, does not fight it and pray against it.
Temptation should protect us from false self-confidence. 'That is why we Christians must be prepared and aware every day that we are constantly being tempted. So no one can go his way with certainty and carelessness, as if Satan were far from us; we must instead be ready for his tricks and ward them off. For even if I am now chaste, patient, friendly, and of firm faith, the Devil can in this very hour pierce my heart with an arrow that I can hardly survive. For he is the kind of enemy that never desists and tires; when one form of tribulation ceases, ever different and new ones arise. That is why there is no counsel or consolation except to run here to seize the Our Father and to speak to God from the heart: "Dear Father, Thou hast commanded me to pray; do not let temptation push me back into sin, shame, and unbelief."
Luther's catechismal explanation transmits a piece of medieval monastic wisdom that had already made its way from monastic cell to parish a century earlier. But spiritual distress now receives a new, Reformation interpretation, and its inescapableness is impressed upon all the faithful. This Reformation recasting seems to have a medieval flavor at first because, as usual, the Devil plays an exceedingly dangerous, omnipresent role. That is why everyone is acquainted with tribulation. The young are plagued above all by the temptations of the flesh while older people suffer under the miseries and anxieties of the world. The Devil takes care of "strong Christians," as Luther calls those who, like himself, perform spiritual duties. For everyone, young and old, spiritual and layman, the statement holds that God does not cause distress, but He countenances it to make Christians realize that God alone helps, self-help can only fail.
Tribulations transform abstract theological principles into good news because the professing of "by grace alone" or "by faith alone" becomes an inner experience only for the victim of the Devil's attacks, who discovers that he lives without stability of his own, but by faith alone, and survives only by virtue of grace. God is one's sole refuge, prayer one's sole protection. Thus
Satan, as dangerous as he is, does not have a free hand; he is set to work schooling Christians in faith. He will have no trouble finding them, for God is not the only one who reads Luther's catechism every day—the Devil knows it by heart, too.
THE REFORMER ATTACKED What Luther is teaching here is eloquent testimony to his own spiritual crises. His experiences are rooted in a fundamental form of spiritual temptation: is my penitence in the confessional great enough to permit me to receive absolution, forgiveness of sins? Confessional scruples were such a widespread problem in the Middle Ages that a number of handbooks and guides dealing with scrupulosity and giving instructions on how to deal with the affliction appeared on the market."
Confessional distress was of so grave a nature that mitigation of a basic sort was called for. The solution advocated by Franciscan theologians, above all, was to demand no more than "minimal penitence" from a confessant.
The priest, by virtue of his office, would then transform this penitence into true contrition when he granted absolution. But that was simply to dislocate, not dispel, the problem, for how could the confessant be sure that he had genuinely achieved the requisite minimum of repentance? No demand would ever be so minor that it could not remain unfulfilled.
The distinctive features of Luther's tribulations stand out prominently against this background. He, too, knew these scruples and the doubts over whether he had perhaps not even accomplished what might justifiably be expected of him if he only tried hard enough. Luther's response was a specifically Reformation one: the fears attendant on temptations are not diminished if demands are lowered. God and God alone rroduces certainty. His
"accomplishment" on the cross was on behalf of us all, and His promise will hold good for all times.
All of the Devil's attacks are directed at certainty of salvation, that fundamental article of faith. All temptations, whatever sort they may be, are aimed at awakening doubts in God's reliability. Not oniy Luther the fearful monk but Luther the professor and "reformer," too, felt singularly affected by these "critical doubts." Although he never called himself a reformer or saw himself as one—only Christ is the Reformer, only Judgment Day will bring
"reformation"—the fact remains that "he began the whole movement," he rediscovered the Gospel. He regarded himself as an instrument of God; he could term himself "prophet" or "Evangelist." But the cruelest of the Devil's challenges—because it was the most obvious—concerned this role: "Do you think that you alone possess wisdom?" Would God have allowed so many generations of Christians to die in ignorance of the truth?
Luther spoke freely of the fear these objections evoked in him and thus gave neither contemporaries nor future generations occasion to glorify him as a mighty hero and unerring deliyerer of Church and empire. In an age that dismissed renewal as relapse and branded change as heresy, to question his vocation could not help but shake him thoroughly. He "who alone wishes
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION to possess wisdom" has prepared Hell for himself and is tormented by the guilt of having driven masses of followers into the arms of the Devil. Whenever he felt the Devil breathing down his neck in this way, there was only one answer left: God alone is absolute certainty, even if the Church at times is lost in a cloud of unknowing.
Even when the faithful were led into "Babylonian captivity" and had to suffer papal oppression, they could fall back on the imperishable, divinely conferred "treasures of the Church": Scripture and sacraments, creed and Lord's Prayer. The challenge "Do you think that you alone possess wisdom?" occasions not only alarm but joy at the signs God has given that truth is unconquerable even in the darkest centuries. But the Scriptures provide the sole mainstay; only the truth can overcome the Devil. Luther's proclamation before the emperor in Worms, "Here I stand, God help me, Amen," is a trenchant expression of his certainty that contrary to his wishes and plans,
God had made him His instrument.
Linked as they are to person and time, challenges to his status as prophet and Evangelist apply to Martin Luther in his unique historical situation. But all Christians are subject to two other forms of diabolical temptation: on the one hand, despair over moral unworthiness and on the other, uncertainty over whether God has not already excluded one from salvation for all eternity—what theology terms predestinational anxiety.
Even the earliest sources demonstrate Luther's awareness of God's holiness and His wrath at unholiness and sin. Luther's reminiscences permit one to conclude that he was the very sort of person to fall into the fearful selfdoubt the handbooks described as the sickness of scrupulosity. A man with these proclivities should not have become a monk and certainly not an Observant mendicant monk, one would assume today. But in Luther's time the contrary was the case: so unsettled a person, it was thought, should choose the safe path and enter a monastery. Luther was really able to try out the salutary and salvational methods of his time, to the point of desperation. He endeavored to observe the Augustinian rule by means of extreme selfdiscipline, fasting, prayer, study, and vigils. When he had done what he could to be a worthy recipient of the sacraments of penance and the Lord's
Supper, God would not deny him His grace.
The discovery that he who lives by faith is truly just before God was accompanied by a reevaluation of spiritual distress. The new interpretation manifests itself in two conclusions: tribulations are not a disease, so there can be no cure for them. They are a characteristic condition of Christian life. Only firm faith in God's unalterable promise enables spiritual crises to THE REFORMER ATTACKED be withstood—not overcome. God's law shows with frightening clarity what has become of man; everyone is exposed in his unworthiness. God's law is the Devil's proof: there is no salvation! Yet precisely at this point it becomes clear that the mercy of God is the only refuge.
Luther's spiritual crises escalate in intensity. The Devil himself appears on the scene and will not content himself with simple "temptations," as Luther termed the seducer's arts. The Devil drives a person to doubt his election, and seduces the doubter into wanting to penetrate God's hidden will to find out whether or not he is really among those chosen by God. This undertaking must fail and the ensuing uncertainty leads to fear, blasphemy, and hatred for God, and finally to doubts about the existence of God altogether. What the Devil would most like to do is to push all Christians to the brink of revelation, tempt them to try to penetrate God's nature, and then let them fall where he himself fell: into the void. With this the Devil discloses his most ardent desire: he is "not only a liar, he is also a killer." ?
Luther's own theological and personal turning point became a momentous breakthrough for Church and society with his public call to resist the Devil in the spiritual and temporal realms, to unmask him as a liar and brand him a killer. It was typically medieval that Luther had to abandon the world. The end of the Middle Ages drew near when he would not let the world go to the Devil, instead sounding the battle cry for its preservation and improvement.
The world, which had previously been the wide gate and the broad way to Hell, and partner to a pact with the Devil, now disclosed itself in the Reformation view to be the world God had ordained and preserved, an environment in which plants, animals, and man could flourish. Whereas good works had once been done for God's sake, to comply with His high righteousness, they were now redirected to earth for the sake of man, in the service of life and survival until doomsday. Reformation of the Church will be God's work— at the end. Improvement of the world is the reformation's work—now.
Mysticism and Life: Tauler and Staupitz The upheavals in Luther's soul, which he described as hellish torments, had far-reaching consequences. The Reformer went his own perilous way, not only as a biblical theologian but also as a psychologically experienced minister. His inner tension could easily have broken him, or, conversely, he might have sublimated it. There was a genuine risk that the monk would become so entangled in his own self-analysis that he would end by fettering himself: his
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION creative power and extraordinary intelligence might have fallen victim to his native sensitivity. He was preserved from this fate by his mentor, his "Father in Christ," Johannes Staupitz: "Through Staupitz, the Lord Jesus repeatedly uplifted and strengthened me in the most wonderful way." *
The other possibility would have been to go the way of speculative mysticism, something the young Luther did actually try for a time: a soul craving for God seeks to leave the world behind, to cast off earthly fetters, to attain heavenly spheres, and—finally—to find peace in the joyous union with God.
Reading the young Luther, one keeps expecting a clear profession of mysticism. And it comes, but in an unanticipated form and tenor, without the goal of ascending to God. Luther was enthusiastic about Johannes Tauler and the Theologia Germanica, of which he supervised an incomplete printed edition in 1516 and a complete edition in 1518; but he read Tauler and the Theologia
Germanica as striking examples of genuine, personal, living theology, not as exponents of mysticism. Tauler became a signpost in Luther's search for life by faith in the world.
Johannes von Staupitz was the decisive figure. He preceded the young monk and professor on the road to faith. Staupitz, as Luther later saw it, showed him the way that led him to the crucial turning point or—as his opponents would have said—onto the precipitous path of heresy. We have already met Staupitz as vicar general of the German Augustinian Observants, summoning Luther to Wittenberg from Erfurt and deciding that Luther should undertake doctoral studies. But there was far more than order or university connecting the two. Both were trained scholastically, though according to different schools, and both were subsequently inspired by St. Augustine and St. Paul to develop a biblical theology. Man's sins, God's grace, and justification through Christ were themes central to the theology of both teacher and student.
Luther was more the scholar, Staupitz more the pastor and preacher, but both combined the duties of teaching with the preaching of the Gospel. The differences between them are evident, too: Luther came from artisan and burgher stock, Staupitz was an aristocrat; Staupitz was not only Luther's superior, he was also fifteen years older. When Luther received his doctorate in 1512, Staupitz was forty-five, at the height of his career and, after overcoming the crisis in his order, at his most charismatic. Luther "studied" with Staupitz, as both a theologian and a minister.
Luther had a special affinity for Staupitz's sense of humor, though Luther's own jokes were more aggressive and less genteel. Theirs was not black humor; their laughter derived from the human foibles that demonstrate themTHE REFORMER ATTACKED selves to be all too human when viewed from the perspective of infinity. This gift of self-irony is illustrated by an anecdote told about Staupitz as a young preacher. The Augustinian prior had embarked upon a series of sermons on the Book of Job at the monastery church of Tiibingen in 1498. When he had
"come as far as the tenth or eleventh chapter," he realized that the stilted analysis from the pulpit "was tormenting [Job] more than his wretched boils." And so Staupitz broke off the sermons, concluding with the words: "I am stopping. Job and I are both glad!"
The sermons on Job are of such great relevance because they discuss the problem of Satan's power and the sense of Job's torments and tribulations.
The extant manuscript breaks off after thirty-four sermons—and Staupitz had just reached chapter two. He never even managed the ten chapters mentioned in the anecdote; that would have taken years. The arrangement of the sermons in a succession of main parts, discourses, sub-parts, and subchapters is so complicated as to render the text of the sermons extremely unwieldy. Staupitz later changed his style radically. His riveting book on the election and justification of the faithful, published in 1517 from Advent sermons given in 1516, is free from ponderous academic formalism.°
The anecdote about Staupitz and his Job sermons evinces a Protestant slant when it concludes: "The foundations of the Christian faith, so he said, were still hidden from him at that time." But the heart of the matter is that Staupitz genuinely purged biblical exegesis of cumbersome erudition.
Luther's recollection of Staupitz's instructions that only the Bible was to be read in the monastery (probably meaning in the refectory during meals) is in keeping with this.' More changed than style when Staupitz put aside the discussions of Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas and reached for the Scriptures. What remained was the subject: God's mercy, the refuge Job seeks in his suffering. This divine mercy becomes even more palpable and develops an exceptionally personal appeal in Staupitz's principal work, the 1516 Nuremberg Advent sermons. Christ, who suffered and was crucified, is the guarantee for a merciful God. "I" can see from Christ, who died "for me" and lives "in me," that God has turned his countenance to me.
Staupitz can root his theme of God's comfort and consolation in spiritual distress firmly in this foundation of the cross of Christ. Job, he told the congregation in the Augustinian church in Tiibingen, survived the assaults of the Devil, the world and the flesh by virtue of God's grace and mercy*—but he could never be certain of a future with God.' In his Nuremberg sermons
Staupitz adopted a completely different tone: Christ owes the elect succor through grace! Staupitz's response is an impressive attempt to master the THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION trials of a troubled time fearful of God's inscrutable ways; instead of staring toward a fate unknown to them, the tormented should look to Christ, where they can find safety. That is what Staupitz meant when he forbade the desperate Luther to speculate about God's wrath: "Our Father is too high. .
. . Attach yourself to Christ, then everything will turn for the good" —"Providence can be comprehended and found in the wounds of Christ—and nowhere else." '°
Staupitz did not help the frightened monk by simply giving him the first confessional counsel that came to his mind; he spoke out of the fullness of experience. The theology of temptation was his specialty. Through his counsel Staupitz delivered his fellow Augustinian from deep distress, for Luther was close to despair: Am I among the elect? Is my name written in the Book of Life? Had Staupitz not come to his rescue, Luther later confessed, he would either have succumbed to despair or he would have hardened himself against all fear of God in arrogant indifference."
Christ's wounds assure us of God's love, which precedes all penitence— that is Johann von Staupitz's discovery. Both Staupitz and Luther must have read the works of the Erfurt Augustinian Johannes von Paltz, whose Himmlische Fundgrube (Heavenly Treasuretrove, circa 1490) was very widely read and saw nearly twenty editions in thirty years. The work attested plainly to what contemporaries were striving for. They were holding out for a tangible forgiveness of sins. Like Staupitz, von Paltz emphasized Christ's wounds, but he was worlds away from Staupitz. The Fundgrube is a guide to meditation: one should submerge oneself in the five sacred wounds and school oneself in this way. to overcome the world, kill off the flesh, and drive away evil thoughts. Meditating devoutly on Christ's Passion would inspire such intense love of God that the meditator would become capable of true contrition for his sins.'?
That is the very advice Staupitz does not take over, nor would it have been of any help to Luther: if I have not been elected by God since all eternity, meditating on the Passion can only be additional torment. The way of Staupitz is a bold, almost impudent, one: he obliges Christ to redeem those who believe in Him. The motto Staupitz adopted was a programmatic demand: "I am thine, save me" (Ps. 119.94). Christ is not a means or a helper enabling man to fulfil the demands of God's righteousness, he is the executor of God's mercy and thus the proof and pledge for God's election.
If Luther is viewed as a solitary discoverer, leaving behind his time as he progresses, Staupitz seems a ship that passes in the night, someone who merely crossed his path. This is why the differences between Staupitz and THE REFORMER ATTACKED
Luther have been stressed to the present day. And there are differences, as later decisions plainly show. In the critical spring of 1521, when Luther, already excommunicated by the pope, had little difficulty imagining what he might expect from the emperor and empire, he sent a distressed letter to I dare to write to you so openly because I fear you will be caught between Christ and the pope, who, as you can see, are feuding bitterly.
But let us pray that with the spirit of His mouth, the Lord will destroy this son of evil shortly. If you do not wish to follow me along this path, let me go and obey God's guidance. ..
Truly, your submission has saddened me greatly. It has shown me a completely different Staupitz from the one who so courageously preached grace and the cross.
Wittenberg on the day of St. Apollonia 1521 Your son Martinus Lutherus."
Warning Staupitz of the dangers of "submission" had no effect. With papal permission Staupitz abandoned the Augustinian order in April 1522 and was elected abbot of St. Peter's Benedictine monastery in Salzburg on August 2. Luther felt deserted, even betrayed, and expressed his disappointment openly. Nonetheless, Staupitz always remained his "revered" father, the first person to have discovered and embarked on the road to reformation.
The vicar general and doctoral supervisor had done more than allay tormenting fears of predestination; he had, Luther felt, "helped him out" by providing basic, biblical, and thus unimpeachable answers. This was Johannes von
Staupitz's enduring contribution to Luther's theology.
The genuine divergences between Luther and Staupitz did not stem solely from contrary decisions in life. What they had in common masked considerable dissimilarity: for Staupitz, the Devil did not threaten the harmony of the world; like Job, the "just" are only "temporarily" exposed to enemies. God's omnipotence reduces the realm of the Devil's activity to a narrowly restricted area. In his last letter, which he wrote to Luther shortly before he died, there is the intimation that he suspects the Devil has led the Church into captivity, but he does not share Luther's view that the Last
Days, with their cataclysmic unleashing of chaos, have already dawned.
The year 1520 saw the publication of Luther's treatise The Freedom of a Christian, in which he presented his doctrine of justification in the form that was to make history. The "joyful exchange" emerges as the central event in a THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION
Christian's life. As bride and bridegroom exchange pgssessions in a marriage, so the sinner receives justification from Christ, and Christ takes over the Christian's sins. Luther later found an image for the joyful exchange in Jacob's ladder: Jacob's dream has come true; Christ descends from Heaven, and the Christian ascends to be united with God."
Staupitz, too, spoke of the joyful exchange whereby Christ takes over guilt, thus becoming "unjust and a sinner" Himself—a concept that immediately provoked pious indignation. '5 But the conclusion Staupitz drew was different from Luther's: liberated from the burden of sin, the faithful will now find perceptible peace. The new condition of righteousness can be experienced; it is a sweet foretaste of eternity.'®
Luther, on the other hand, experienced the growing power of the Devil, who, challenged by the Gospel of the joyful exchange, directs his attacks at the faithful. The Devil cites Moses and his Ten Commandments against the "alien" righteousness of Christ; he breeds scruples, insists on good works, and relentlessly drives the conscience to assuage the wrath of a just God.
The "joyful exchange" of which Luther speaks does not lead to the sweet experience described by Staupitz, for in the battle with the Devil there is no rest, no peace, and no visible success.""
Through Christ's exchange the faithful Christian is "simultaneously sinner and just"—'"simul peccator et iustus." '* He is a sinner because self-love and inner resistance against God remain unconquered; he is just because he has been given the righteousness of Christ, which is valid before God.
Luther found the language and the model for a graphic description of this state of dual existence in Tauler and the Theologia Germanica. The soul is taut with groaning over the burdens and sins of creation; it is beyond earthly cares when it experiences the joyous union with God. In mysticism groaning and rapture characterize the beginning and the end of the road from painful separation from the world to joyous union. For Luther "groaning" and "rapture" are experiential terms for the simultaneity of peace and misery: peace is interspersed with the cruel reality of the Devil's power— oe gemitus et raptus." '°
Luther's encounter with Augustinian theology through Staupitz and with mystical experience through Tauler encouraged and confirmed him on his way to a new piety and a new way of thinking. Both of these central experiences, tribulation and mystical ascent, diabolical remoteness from God and joyous union with God, are no longer typical of the spiritually ill and the spiritual elite, two marginal Christian groups. All parts of the true Church suffer spiritual distress and are at the same time united with God. Thus the THE REFORMER ATTACKED
Church of martyrs is no obsolete stage in Church history. The Church is the community of the faithful and must thus remain the community of those afflicted by the Devil.
Luther's phraseology and imagery—'"joyful exchange" and "Jacob's ladder"—are totally devoid of any trace of abstract academic sterility. They express life in process and not a static condition; they originate from the living experience of faith in a life between God and the Devil, not from theological theory.
I did not learn my theology at once, but had to seek ever deeper and deeper after it. That is where my spiritual distress led me; for one can never understand the Holy Scriptures without experience and tribulations. .
. If we do not have such a Devil, then we are nothing but speculativi Theologi, who handle their thoughts badly and speculate about everything with their reason, that it must be like this and like that; just like the way of the monks in the monasteries."°
Thrice Excommunicated It was August 7, 1540. As so often, there were guests at the table when the master of the house mentioned the special significance of the day: "It is twenty-two years ago today that I was condemned in Rome.""' Luther spoke energetically and often about his road to Reformation because he knew that the rising generation had no idea of what it meant to grow up under the papacy. Certain dates and events were etched in his memory, consolidating over the years to form a history of his life and the Reformation. The dates were not always correct, for though Luther had an astonishing memory for the written word, he did not have a head for numbers. But this time he was right; the date of his first condemnation had impressed itself firmly on his mind.
Excommunication was always a prominent subject in his recollections.
The curia had publicly handed the doctor of the Church over to the Devil as a heretic and enemy of God. He had reacted with perplexity, which he subsequently tried to hide under the cloak of irony. "They dealt with my poor self in so pontifically fine a way that I had already been condemned in Rome for sixteen days before the citation reached me [on August 7, 1518].""
He had been able to anticipate the outcome of the trial in Rome and what kind of judgment would be forthcoming, for the first opponent to speak in THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION a Rome was both Luther's accuser and his judge:" Sylvester Prierias, defender of absolute pontifical power and thus vehement defender of indulgences. But Luther, too, considered himself a defender of the pope and believed that respect for the power of the Holy Father in Rome meant taking a stand against the abuses resulting from indulgences.
Well into the indulgence controversy Luther still regarded himself as loyal to the pope—indeed, even as an ardent and submissive papist. Luther had been raised to obedience—to his parents and teachers, prior and pope—so condemnation by Rome must have wounded him to the very depths of his soul. Now, he was being excommunicated again, for the second and decisive time. Only the dread suspicion and then the terrible certainty that the papacy had opened Rome to the Antichrist enabled him to bear the blow ofa papal ban.
On December 10, 1520, even before the papal bull threatening excommunication, "Exsurge Domine," arrived in Wittenberg, the students organized what we might call a "happening" and burned books by scholastic authors near the east gate of the city, the Elstertor. Luther joined the students at the bonfire, where he consigned the papal bull and the Church of Rome's ecclesiastical law to the fire to express his terrible discovery: Rome had led the Church into the Babylonian captivity. Trust in the pope had given way to the certainty that there was a great "change" approaching and that God Himself was going to intervene. Despite his experiences in Rome and all the criticism of the curia that was circulating, his trust in the papacy had long remained unbroken. How very much the pope had been the center of the Church to him can be seen in his appalled conclusion: the successor to Peter was no longer in a position to "strengthen his brethren" (Luke 22.32). Now it was clear—the Last Days had begun."
His break with the past was not sudden, nor did it concern the papacy alone. From a spectator's vantage point Luther seems to have severed all ties and resolved to undertake a heroic struggle for freedom. He himself experienced the dramatic years between 1518 and 1521 very differently: he had not turned away; he had been turned away, excommunicated three times— by his religious order, by the pope, and by the emperor. He experienced this triple blow as a painful process of separation. The misery of isolation made a lasting imprint on his memory: "In the year 1518 Staupitz released me from my vow of obedience to the order and left me alone in Augsburg. Then the pope cut me off from his Church and finally the emperor from his empire.
But the Lord took me up."* This is an allusion to the Twenty-seventh Psalm: "When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me