THE REFORMER ATTACKED up" (Ps. 27.10). Luther did not see himself as a man going his own way but as a man forsaken; that is how he experienced and understood the beginnings of the history of the Reformation—lonely but not alone.
Do Not Indulge in Indulgences!
A historian can only call Luther's behavior intrepid—he did not evade condemnation by Rome and the empire. But the picture remains incomplete until we establish what produced and sustained this man. He was malleable, anything but rebellious, impulsive, sensitive, and open to new influences.
The question inevitably arises: why did he not recoil from the concentrated power of the empire in Worms, how could he bear to be condemned a heretic by Rome and damned as the Devil's spawn? Any attempt at an answer must take into account Luther's own response: fear of the Lord controls thought and action. Anxiety and fear engendered by temporal powers and ecclesiastical pressure pale in comparison.
There is nothing in Luther's development to point to a craving for recognition or ambition to gain public approval. Who knew Doctor Ludher from Wittenberg when he set out in October 1517? University professors in Germany were, it is true, beginning to wonder about him, and the vicar general obviously expected a great deal from him, but that was all within a small, restricted world. He was not even a famous professor, and in the crucial
-early years his bitter opponent, Johannes Eck, who was approximately the same age, had far better connections and a much more forceful public personality.
At the beginning it seemed a most remote possibility that this monk would ever leave his comfortable niche at the University of Wittenberg and set pope and emperor alike against him. Luther did not speak up publicly until the preacher of indulgences Johannes Tetzel (¢1519) became active in the Brandenburg territories near Wittenberg in the spring of 1517. Tetzel was equal to his task. He knew how to make the business of salvation so appealing and urgent that people from Wittenberg with money to spend were also crossing the border to purchase indulgences. In the confessional Luther soon heard what they had to relate upon their return. What they told him of Tetzel's preaching appalled him more than the actual indulgences they brought back with them. Drafts of such sermons probably written by Tetzel have survived; they show that the Wittenberg purchasers of indulgences had listened carefully to their indulgence preacher: "All of you, run for the salvaTHE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION tion of your souls. .
. Seek ye the Lord while He is near." While the indulgence peddler is near!
You priest, you nobleman, you merchant, you woman, you virgin, you married woman, you youth, you old man, go into your church, which, as I have said, is St. Peter's, and visit the hallowed cross that has been put up for you, that incessantly calls you. .
. Remember that you are in such stormy peril on the raging sea of this world that you do not know if you can reach the harbor of salvation. .
. You should know: whoever has confessed and is contrite and puts alms into the box, as his confessor counsels him, will have all of his sins forgiven, and even after confession and after the jubilee year will acquire an indulgence on every day that he visits the cross and the altars, as if he were visiting the seven altars in the Church of St. Peter, where the perfect indulgence is granted.
So why are you standing about idly? Run, all of you, for the salvation of your souls. Be quick and concerned about redemption as about the temporal goods you doggedly pursue from day till night. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found .
. while he is near" (Isa. 55.6); work, as John says, "while it is day," for "the night cometh when no man can work" (John g.4).—Do you not hear the voices of your dead parents and other people, screaming and saying: ""Have pity on me, have pity on me... for the hand of God hath touched me' (Job 19.21)? We are suffering severe punishments and pain, from which you could rescue us with a few alms, if only you would." Open your ears, because the father is calling to the son and the mother to the daughter."
Tetzel, a Dominican monk, faithfully repeated the official Church doctrine concerning indulgences: indulgences availed only those who were penitent and had confessed. But the proof of penitence—which was demanded—was the willingness to accept penance, and possession of an indulgence constituted proof of this willingness. A great many priests were ready to give absolution on the basis of such evidence.
A confessant must first convince the priest that he is contrite, then confess his sins, and finally accept the penance prescribed by the priest. Together these three elements form the sacrament of penance. Only the third part of the sacrament, the actual punishment, can be replaced by indulgences. Was
Tetzel making a mockery of indulgences? No, because his rendering was based on the instructions that his archbishop, Cardinal Albrecht of Mainz, had issued on indulgences, and the cardinal in turn derived his interpretation from Pope Leo X's bull on indulgences.
What Luther did not know was that Albrecht, of the noble house of THE REFORMER ATTACKED Letter of indulgence for the rebuilding of St. Peter's in Rome, printed in Mainz, 1516/17.
Hohenzollern, was caught in a political dilemma. The archbishopric of Mainz had long been a lucrative source of income for the curia. When the Hohenzollerns wanted their Albrecht, archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of the see of Halberstadt, as archbishop of Mainz as well, the curia was quick to draw attention to the difficulties. Money was the only way of atoning for violating the prohibition against accumulating posts and benefices. The curia was, however, very helpful. They permitted Albrecht to keep half of the proceeds of the indulgence for the rebuilding of St. Peter's to repay the money he had borrowed from the Fugger bank in Augsburg, which had provided him with the necessary funds to obtain Rome's consent.
In popular histories of the Reformation (and with admirable self-criticism in the modern Catholic version), Tetzel and Albrecht appear as the guilty parties, sharing the blame for Luther's Reformation. The one had hawked indulgences and thus misrepresented them completely; the other, a wily ecclesiastical prince, had ill-used the pope for his own purposes. Indeed
Luther spared neither of them, but his revolt was not a personal vendetta and it concerned far more than dubious formulations and the business transactions of the Church. He had begun his exhortations against indulgences some three years before: what can be so seriously abused in practice must undergo fundamental correction. The search for grace cannot be satisIgo
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION fied by purchasing indulgences; its fulfilment comes from the preaching of the Gospel.
On the eve of All Saints' Day, October 31, 1517, Luther posted the ninety-five theses, which he had composed in Latin, on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg, according to university custom."'
Luther directed these theses against the system of indulgences, but not by citing the unfortunate, exaggerated statements of overzealous purveyors of indulgences and making them look ridiculous. What he explicitly opposed was the advertising slogan: "A penny in the box, a soul out of purgatory."
Half a year later the theological faculty in Paris likewise repudiated the slogan, even condemning it as "false, scandalous, and untenable.""* But that was not Luther's main point. He wanted to stress true repentance and thus make the limited value of indulgences clear: they profit only the living, not the dead in purgatory, because indulgences can only commute punishments imposed by the Church. The profound consequences of sin, namely fear and insufficient love of God and one's neighbors, cannot be removed by indulgences but only by the Gospel:
62. The true treasure of the church is the most holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God.
63. But this treasure is naturally [merito] most odious, for it makes the first the last. [Mark 9.34; Matt. 20.16] 64. The treasure of indulgences, on the other hand, is very acceptable, for it makes the last the first.
65. Therefore the treasures of the Gospel were the net with which one once caught the wealthy.
66. The treasures of indulgences are now the net with which one catches men's wealth."
How well composed the ninety-five theses are is evident from the fact that the conclusion can already be deduced from the first thesis: "When our
Lord and Master Jesus Christ said 'Repent!' (Matt. 4.17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." But, as Staupitz had impressed on his student, true repentance is love, a response to the love of God, and not fear of Hell. And true repentance leads through temptation, death, and Hell, for it is the path in imitation of Christ, which no one may spend money to evade. Penance is a misleading word, for genuine repentance is not imposed; it is granted as a gift.
Thus it is already obvious that the ninety-five theses were criticizing more than indulgences. Luther went one bold step further in his thoughts about the Church and the treasures of the Church: "Every true Christian particiTHE REFORMER ATTACKED
IgI pates in the treasures of the Church, even without letters of indulgence"
(thesis 37); "this treasure is the Gospel of the glory and grace of God" (thesis 62). In the ensuing controversy over the Gospel of grace, this guiding principle became an actuating force.
Barely two weeks after being posted, the theses had circulated all over Germany, Luther reported; and understandably so, "for all the world is complaining about indulgences." *' According to university records there was a disputation on the theses in Wittenberg, as Luther had desired. But against his wishes they were translated into German and printed in Nuremberg. No copy of this edition has survived. Luther affixed a handwritten
"list" to the church door and only then sent a second version of the Latin theses to the printer, first in Wittenberg and then in Nuremberg, Leipzig, and Basel. Luther later described the echo he found as a depressing success: "The publicity did not appeal to me. For .
. I myself did not know what an indulgence was, and the song was getting too high for my voice." * Three years earlier, in the autumn of 1514, Luther had already denounced indulgences in the university lecture hall, terming them proof of the nadir Christendom had reached. There were Christians who thought money and a sigh would get them to heaven: "It is dangerous to believe that we can draw on the treasures of the Church without adding anything ourselves." ** He had thus recognized the threat to true repentance as early as 1514, though good works still constituted the treasure of the Church for him at the time. But Luther's 1514 deprecation of indulgences demonstrates that the ninety-five theses had two faces, one looking backward, and the other, directed to the reevaluation of repentance and the treasures of the Church, looking into the future. Contemporaries will not have found it easy to distinguish between them. For most people Luther's manifesto was chiefly a bold formulation of criticism that had long been common. It is thus understandable that the theses were passed from hand to hand and "posted in many places," as Duke George of Saxony, who was later to become Luther's inexorable foe, was at this point still pleased to report.** On October 31, 1517, a question had been raised; the Church itself was not in imminent danger.
And it was not the ninety-five theses themselves that had such a revolutionary effect on posterity. The decisive event was the subsequent debate on the question of the fallibility of councils, the supreme power of the pope, and the right to admonish the Church, on scriptural grounds, to change its ways. The dispute revealed a rift that could not be mended later. The Sermon on Indulgence and Grace, which was written at approximately the same time as the theses but only appeared in February 1518, already belonged to this intensified phase. The inquiry of October 31, 1517, had become a call to THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION repentance: this was the right way of preaching indulgences. The sermon became the first bestseller of the Reformation; it was published all over the empire and reprinted more than twenty times in two years.*°
The Wittenberg program was now being publicly developed in a manner accessible to the layman. Two key sentences marked the minimal platform
Luther urged the Church to accept: "It is a grievous error to think that one could make amends for his sins, as God forgives sins without recompense, out of unlimited grace at all times, and demands nothing in return but living a proper life from then on." Contravening the scholastic doctors, he concluded with the unshakable principle behind all eighteen articles of the sermon: "In the points listed I have no doubts: they are clearly attested to in the Scriptures. So you should have no doubts either and let Doctores scholasticos be scholasticos." *'
Two of the three principles of the Reformation have now been combined:
"unmerited grace" and "pure Scripture," sola gratia and sola scriptura. The a Christian's life before God's countenance and in the service of a "proper life" in the world. Barely four weeks later, before Easter of 1518, Luther adds a third Reformation principle: sola fide, God demands and wants faith alone. There is no specific level of contrition necessary to obtain the forgiveness of sins. Trust in the divine Word "Your sins are forgiven" is what counts before God—'"cum sola fides iustificet." #8
Only in the following years and in the course of events throughout his life would Luther discover what a "proper life" meant in the day-to-day world.
Christian life on the basis of the Gospel looks very different from life under canon law. Disregarding one's own, ever uncertain inner state and putting one's trust in God's unshakable promise liberates the believer from brooding, all-consuming self-analysis. Good works are not repudiated, but their aim and direction have been radically "horizontalized": they have moved from Heaven to earth; they are no longer done to please God but to serve the world.
On October 31, 1517, Luther sent his ninety-five theses, and probably the first version of the Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, to Cardinal Albrecht of Mainz, for whom Tetzel was working. Hieronymous Schulze, bishop of Brandenburg, to whose see Wittenberg belonged, was also informed of the contents of the theses and sermon. Instead of replying, Archbishop Albrecht
THE REFORMER ATTACKED forwarded the documents to Rome in December 1517: His Pontifical Holiness will know how "such error" is to be countered.*"
"Error"—today no one, regardless of denomination, would use that word for Luther's criticism of indulgences. The charge that grace was being commercialized was justified. But the question remained: was purchasable grace merely an abuse, or was it a symptom? Was the peddling of indulgences no more than a blunder that could easily be put right, or was it perhaps an indication of a deeper aberration? The year 1518 was to bring the answer.
The Dominican Sylvester Mazzolini from Prierio, the papal court theologian and later judge at Luther's trial, provided the response to the Reformation challenge. It took Prierias—as he was called after his birthplace—only three days to unmask Luther's ninety-five theses as heretical. Prierias' Dialogue Concerning the Power of the Pope is so illuminating because his ideas were far ahead of papal theology, which had been stagnating for a century. The four points underlying his Dialogue anticipate the results of the First and Second Vatican Councils.
According to Prierias the pope is the highest authority and foundation of the universal Church. He is infallible "when he makes a decision in his capacity as pope." His doctrine is "the infallible rule of faith, from which the Holy Scriptures too draw their strength and authority." A council may be mistaken at the start, but not at the end, when the pope has authorized the council's decisions. Though the doctrine of papal infallibility had already been developed in the late thirteenth century—in radical Franciscan circles "—it was still severely limited by the majority of canon lawyers of the time. Prierias' simple, unambiguous doctrine of infallibility is understandable as an Italian reaction to the fifteenth-century "conciliar" councils, which were not governed by the pope, undermined the concept of centralism, and fostered hopes of reform in the Church. But in Germany his brand of papalism had never been heard before. It was this papal doctrine that would determine Luther's "no" to Rome.
As I [Prierias] intend to sift your doctrine thoroughly, my Martin, it is necessary for me to establish a basis of norms and foundations. .
He who does not accept the doctrine of the Church of Rome and pontiff of Rome as an infallible rule of faith, from which the Holy
Scriptures, too, draw their strength and authority, is a heretic.
The Church of Rome can make decisions both in word and deed concerning faith and morals. And there is no difference except that eS
THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION words are better suited. In this sense habit acquires the force of law, for the will of a prince expresses itself in deeds which he allows or himself arranges to have done. Consequently: as he who thinks incorrectly concerning the truth of Scriptures is a heretic, so too he who thinks incorrectly concerning the doctrines and deeds of the Church in matters of faith and morals is a heretic."
In his "conclusion" Prierias draws the ultimate consequence: "Whoever says that the Church of Rome may not do what it is actually doing in the matter of indulgences is a heretic." Prierias had now proclaimed not only the doctrine but also the deeds of the Church, here the sale of indulgences, to be infallible.
On the basis of these axioms he would not even have needed three days to condemn Martin Luther, and with him all Christians who dared to oppose the teachings or practices of the Holy Church of Rome on scriptural grounds: heretics! That is all the Dialogue did, nor did it need to do more: the Dialogue truly made all dialogue superfluous. Luther demonstrated his opinion of the papal theologian's work plainly as soon as it arrived in Wittenberg: he had it printed—without comment. But he used more than Prierias' own voice to counter Prierias' words; he also composed a reply and took only two days to do it, one fewer than Prierias, as he emphasized. The same publisher simultaneously issued both Prierias' Dialogue and Luther's reply in Evidently the idea of using prefatory axioms to establish an unequivocal position made sense to Luther, and he countered Prierias' four foundations with three of his own. The first had long been obvious to him and consisted of the two biblical texts that had been in his mind and heart since the autumn of 1509: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thess. 5.21);
"Even if an angel descend from heaven and preach a gospel contrary to that you have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1.8).*
Luther drew the second and third foundations from ecclesiastical tradition and ecclesiastical law. He quoted Augustine and canon law to prove that the Church had expressly acknowledged the Bible as the only standard of faith and morals. Thus Prierias' foundations contradicted Church doctrine, for they were not—this was the decisive point—based on Scripture, nor were they rooted in the Church Fathers or the law; and they were, moreover, bereft of reason: "It is thus my right, that means my Christian freedom, to reject and dismiss you and your Dialogue." "
The Luther affair could have been concluded with this exchange of blows.
The two parties had nothing left to say to each other. Luther's copy of THE REFORMER ATTACKED Prierias' Dialogue had been accompanied by a summons to Rome—he was to appear for interrogation within sixty days. It did not take the gift of clairvoyance to predict the outcome.** Before the grace period had expired the decision was made in Rome to take Luther into custody. The papal legate in Augsburg was instructed to have Luther, who was already designated a heretic, arrested if he refused to recant. Two days later, on August 25, the Saxon provincial was ordered to have Luther seized and imprisoned, "bound hand and foot."
THE VERY interaction of religion and power politics for which Luther so vehemently reproached the Papal States now enabled him to survive. The Turks were influencing the course of events, as they would do more than once in the sixteenth century.*' Once Egypt fell into the hands of the sultan, the coasts of Italy were no longer secure; then, Hungary had good reason to fear an invasion, and planning and financing a European crusade against the Turks took on prime importance.
In early May of 1518 Cardinal Cajetan was dispatched to the diet in Augsburg to gain acceptance, with Emperor Maximilian's approval, for a crusade indulgence and a crusade tax. As the curia was aware of the "indulgence climate" in Germany, it was prepared to make concessions from the start. The imperial estates were to appoint a committee to supervise the indulgence funds so that no one could suspect the proceeds of being misappropriated: "If we disappoint the requisite trust in this matter, one would justifiably not believe another word of ours in future"—thus the pope's instructions to his legate.
But the imperial estates would not negotiate. Elector Frederick spoke so scathingly of the "false, blasphemous indulgence" that the subject was dropped. The only thing authorized after several turbulent meetings was a much reduced Turkish tax.*
The association of the indulgence for the building of St. Peter's with the now futile offering of a crusade indulgence began to bring Luther's name to the attention of political circles. For the moment his differences with Johannes Eck, the professor from Ingolstadt, which had already grown into an academic feud in Germany, played only a marginal role. In Rome all arrangements had been made to silence the troublemaker noiselessly. In view of the recalcitrant imperial estates and the dangerous Turkish campaigns, the German tirades against Rome could no longer be passively condoned.
Emperor Maximilian had already agreed to execute the ecclesiastical condemnation with an imperial ban. Luther's sovereign was to be placated by being awarded the Golden Rose of Virtue, as Pope Leo announced to the ee a THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION eee ee consistory. Furthermore, the elector was to be permitted two new indulgences for the Castle Church of Wittenberg. That was how they expected to win the relics collector for their side and induce him to abandon his protection of Luther.
The plan was a good one. Had it been carried out, Luther would have been put in the Church of Rome's custody on the first anniversary of the posting of his theses. In Wittenberg new letters of indulgence pinned to the doors of the Castle Church would have conveyed the message that no theses had ever been posted.
The situation changed when the pope learned of the plans Maximilian and a majority of the electors had to elect the king of Spain as the emperor's successor. Frederick the Wise, who turned a deaf ear to the emperor's election plans, became a political figure to be reckoned with. The elector's value to the curia had suddenly risen steeply. Thus the Saxon was successful in having the venue of Luther's interrogation changed to German soil, to Augsburg. The pope empowered Cardinal Cajetan to decide Luther's guilt or innocence after talking to the accused: disputation was to be avoided at all costs.*"
Luther's trip to Augsburg was carefully organized by the electoral court.
He was provided with sufficient traveling expenses, his lodgings were arranged for, and he was furnished with sound legal counseling. The Saxon
Luther was not to be at the mercy of the ecclesiastical judge in Augsburg.
When Luther stopped at the Augustinian monastery in Nuremberg on his way, he was warned that his life was at stake: it was to be feared that the interrogation would be followed by arrest. The Roman order to take him into custody had leaked out! He truly expected the worst, as can be seen from the message he sent to Wittenberg, which was formulated as a will:
"May Christ live, may Martinus die—like every sinner." °° Luther traveled to Augsburg convinced that he would suffer a martyr's death if he did not recant. "Now you must die"—"Oh, the disgrace I shall bring down upon my parents" were the thoughts incessantly with him.'' The road to Augsburg was a trip to a sure fate. He knew: it was over.
He remembered one thing about the interrogation in the Fugger house particularly: "Recant," Cajetan had demanded again and again. "But I could not bring myself to say those six letters, REVOCO ['I recant']!"" This was certainly not fair to the cardinal legate, who had made himself far more independent of the pontiff's instructions than one would have dared to expect.
A conversation between the two actually took place; at least there had been an opportunity for an exchange of arguments.
Cajetan had thus made an important contribution to the clarification of THE REFORMER ATTACKED Luther's position. Up to that point Luther had cited not only the Scriptures and reason in his defense but also the Church Fathers and canon law. Now, however, it became clear to him that tradition and law could be ambiguous: the cardinal had confronted him with Pope Clement VI's regal bull "Unigenitus." It claimed to establish that the treasures of the Church were at the pope's disposal for the purpose of remitting punishments. Thus criticism of indulgences led unavoidably to conflict with the pope and his judicial office.
The outcome of the Augsburg interrogation was portentous: Cajetan doggedly demanded a recantation, but Luther insisted on scriptural proof.
This led to the first excommunication, as he later called it. Vicar General Johannes von Staupitz, his mentor and comrade-in-arms, released him from obedience to the Augustinian order: "I absolve you from obedience to me and commend you to the Lord God." * The papal order for Luther's arrest could thus be postponed by legal means; at least Staupitz was now relieved of the obligation to take action against Luther. Without an official farewell to the cardinal, Luther left Augsburg hastily, after nightfall on October 16,
1518, riding an unsaddled horse with which he had been provided.
Against Pope and Emperor What had been demanded of Luther after the dissolution of the imperial diet behind closed doors at the Augsburg Fugger house became a public spectacle in Worms. Luther traveled to Worms as he already had to Augsburg— with fear and trembling. On the way he was stricken with such a high fever that his companions feared for his life. What the emperor's safe-conduct was worth was most uncertain—memories of Jan Hus warned against any kind of overconfidence. Opinions at the electoral court were divided; it was left to Luther to decide whether he wished to go to Worms or not. There is resolution and realism in the letter Luther sent ahead from Frankfurt to his friend in Worms, the electoral confessor Georg Spalatin: "We shall enter Worms, even if all the gates of Hell and all the powers of Heaven try to prevent it... . There the task is to chase away the Devil." * In his own letter-book
Spalatin noted: "He wants to come to Worms. Even if there be as many Devils there as tiles on the roof." * Luther's famous statement has circulated in this (abbreviated) form ever since. The words sound so refreshingly hopeful, the language so vivid and graphic, that one can almost see the roguish little devils cavorting on the roofs of Worms. Things did not look so picturesque to Luther.
Worms was anything but a theatrical backdrop. Luther had managed to THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION i Albrecht Diirer, Kaspar Sturm, 1520. Kaspar Sturm accompanied Luther to Worms, providing him with imperial safe conduct. scrape through in Augsburg, but now in Worms he had to face the consequences and defend himself against the concentrated power of the Devil. He felt he was being subjected to a three-fold attack. First, the Devil had assaulted his body, wanting to weaken him through illness. Even more dangerous was the assault on Luther's soul: he was plagued by despondency and haunted by fear. Obviously the Devil was trying hard to drive him to apostasy. Luther did not travel through Germany to Worms in a mood of stoic equanimity and unshakable resolve, exultant in the imposing escort of the bold imperial herald Kaspar Sturm. It was Luther's contemporaries who turned his journey into a triumphal procession, much to the annoyance of the papal legate Aleander.
It is to Aleander that we owe the eyewitness account of Luther's arrival in I had already concluded my letter when I gathered from various reports as well as the hasty running of the people that the great master of heretics was making his entrance. I sent one of my people out, and he told me that about a hundred mounted soldiers, probably the Sickingens, had escorted him to the gate of the city; sitting in a coach with three comTHE REFORMER ATTACKED rades, he entered the city [at ten in the morning], surrounded by some eight horsemen and found lodgings near his Saxon prince. When he left the coach, a priest embraced him and touched his habit three times, and shouted with joy, as if he had had a relic of the greatest saint in his hands. I suspect that he will soon be said to work miracles. This Luther, as he climbed from the coach, looked around in the circle with his demonic eyes and said: "God will be with me." Then he stepped into an inn, where he was visited by many men, ten or twelve of which he ate with, and after the meal, all the world ran there to see him.
It was neither a triumphant victor, nor a demon or miracle worker who had come to Worms; the monk who stepped down from that coach was a sorely tested man.
On his first day before emperor and empire Luther was so intimidated that his statements could hardly be understood. The same evening the papal nuncio Aleander wrote to the pope's vice chancellor in Rome: "The fool entered with a smile on his face and kept moving his head back and forth, up and down, in the presence of the emperor; when he left he no longer seemed so cheerful." *' Aleander felt nothing but contempt for him: a laughing fool!
Rarely has a "smile" been so totally misinterpreted. The enormous tension and almost intolerable pressure Luther had been subjected to became evident once more when the questioning was over. In keeping with old German tournament custom, he threw up his hands, shouting, "I have come through,
I have come through!" * He had been awed by the weight of the situation and the presence of the princes of the empire. But there was more to it than that! He had known since he had made his first attempts at theology in 1509 that true belief must curse the angel that preaches a different Gospel (Gal. 4.8). He had marked out his boundaries with regard to the "Jews" and "Greeks," to Moses and Aristotle; he had taught, written, and preached against undermining the Gospel with laws and entangling it with philosophy. Now he himself was up against a wall. Contrary to his expectations, the pope and curia had not taken his side, the side of the Gospel. He had been sure that "the pope would damn Tetzel and bless me.
. But when I expected blessings from Rome, I received instead thunder and lightning." * Within a very brief period he had had to reorient himself—in fact, he had had to leave everything behind that he was familiar and at home with.
In Augsburg the positive function of canon law had become doubtful to him. Less than a year later the public disputation in Leipzig had witnessed a THE UNEXPECTED REFORMATION
Bernhard Strigel, Emperor Charles V the collapse of a further axiom. Confronted with his opponent from Ingolstadt, Johannes Eck, he had been forced to come to the conclusion that councils, too, could offer no guarantee against the Devil, an appraisal that cost him the support of Duke George of Saxony. What could he now expect in Worms?
On the afternoon of April 18, 1521, the decision was to be made: would the empire, too, "excommunicate" and expel Martin Luther? He was being pitted against the full force of hallowed tradition. "Martin Luther," the Trier official Johann von der Ecken asked on the emperor's behalf, "do you perhaps wish to defend all of your books?" This was the most terrible challenge Luther had ever experienced. Here was the Devil's question being asked officially, by the empire: Do you alone possess wisdom, against so many centuries—against the Holy Church, against councils, decrees, laws, and ceremonies that our forefathers and everyone around us have upheld up to the present day?
On the previous day he had asked for time, "so I can give the correct answer without doing injury to the Word of God and endangering my soul."
Now there could be no more evasion, meditation, mitigation, or examination. Ecken could not refrain from ridiculing the temporizing monk: anyone may be expected to be in a position to bear witness unequivocally and fearTHE REFORMER ATTACKED lessly at any time; all the more in your case, you famous, experienced professor of theology! The Trier official did his job with such ironic mastery that nuncio Aleander recommended that the curia reward him gencrously for his performance."
Luther made good use of the time he had; his unemotional, explanatory speech before the diet went to the heart of the problem: I am not arguing about my life but about the teachings of Christ. And so I am not free to recant because by virtue of this recantation tyranny and godlessness would be reinforced, and they would rage all the harder. What a recantation puts at stake is plain: not only peace of mind but the welfare of the empire; not only redemption but the preservation of the world. Where the Gospel is denied, the common weal is imperiled.
But this is at best a well-meaning program; reality looks different. The Gospel that the monk from Wittenberg propagates counter to all tradition does not bring peace and harmony; it brings conflict and controversy. That is Luther's view of the Gospel's effect: it gives rise to disputes and arguments. But where it is rejected, there is nothing to keep violence at bay. This is how he spoke before the Diet of Worms:
From this, I think, it is apparent that I have sufficiently considered and weighed the arguments and dangers of scholarly disputes that have been aroused in the world as a result of my teachings, because of which I was so sharply and forcefully admonished yesterday. It is my nature to see the positive side of things—that because of the Word of God, zeal and disputes arise. For that is the course, the manifestation, and the effect of the Word of God; as Christ says: I came not to bring peace but the sword: for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and so on. That is why we must bear in mind that God is wonderful and terrible in his counsel, so we will not strive to smooth out differences if by doing so we contemn the Word of God. Through this a flood of insufferable evil will most likely pour over us."
What confused nonsense he seems to be talking, certainly nothing the diet could make any sense of. Quarrels and dissension arise if the Gospel takes its course unhindered; wickedness and violence break in on the world if it is suppressed. Peace is imperiled whatever the diet decides.
Whether the representatives of the empire were aware of these tensions is a question that will have to remain open. From Luther's point of view the presumed contradiction does not exist. Where the Gospel is preached, the Letter to Emperor Charles V in Luther's own hand, written after the Diet of Worms, 1521.
Luther once again lists the reasons why he cannot submit to the judgment of the Pope. The fragment ends with a central statement: "As long (quando; last word, bottom right) as my conscience is captive to the Holy Scriptures, which have furnished evidence for all my books,
I cannot recant if I am not proven wrong"
(Weimarer Lutherausgabe, Abt. Briefe, 2: 307-10).
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The text of the Edict of Worms, in which Luther is banned, signed May 26, 1521 battle with the adversary inevitably follows. As the Devil wants to subjugate the world, to battle against the Devil is at the same time to serve the common weal.
THE INTERROGATION concluded with Luther's answer "without loops and holes," a succinct series of statements ending with the impressive words:
"My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, for going against my conscience is neither safe nor salutary. I can do no other, here I stand, God help me. Amen."
Aleander and everyone else present immediately realized that Luther had taken back nothing of the scathing attack that had shaken the Church of Rome. He had, after all, unequivocally declared that popes and councils frequently erred and contradicted themselves! The foundations of medieval belief were being rejected as inadequate, and not on the grounds of "principle" or a "loftier standpoint" but on the basis of verifiable historical experience. Pope and council had demonstrably erred repeatedly.
The emperor had no trouble reaching a decision: Luther was a dangerous and destructive force, undermining the foundations of faith in the empire.
He must be placed under "ban and double ban." On May 26, 1521, the emperor promulgated the Edict of Worms: We enjoin you all "not to take the aforenamed Martin Luther into your houses, not to receive him at court, to give him neither food nor drink, not to hide him, to afford him no help, following, support, or encouragement, either clandestinely or publicly, through words or works. Where you can get him, seize him and overpower him, you should capture him and send him to us under tightest security."
Luther's appeal to conscience as the highest authority made an extraordinary impression on later generations. Out of the understandable desire to