Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

us in His Word, are in presence of reason sheerly impossible,

absurd, and false. What (thinks that cunning little fool) can be

more absurd and impossible than that Christ should give us in the Last

Supper His body and blood to eat and drink?... or that the dead should

rise again at the last day?- or that Christ the Son of God should be

conceived, borne in the womb of the Virgin Mary, become man, suffer,

and die a shameful death on the cross?... `0616104 Reason is the

greatest enemy that faith has.... `0616105 She is the Devil's greatest

whore... a whore eaten by scab and leprosy, who ought to be trodden

underfoot and destroyed, she and her wisdom.... Throw dung in her

face... drown her in baptism. `0616106

-

Luther condemned the Scholastic philosophers for making so many

concessions to reason, for trying to prove Christian dogmas

rationally, for trying to harmonize Christianity with the philosophy

of that "cursed, conceited, wily heathen" Aristotle. `0616107

Nevertheless Luther took two steps in the direction of reason: he

made the sermon, not ceremony, the center of religious ritual; and

in the early days of his rebellion he proclaimed the right of every

individual to interpret the Scriptures for himself. He drew up his own

canon of authenticity for the books of the Bible: how far did they

agree with the teaching of Christ? "Whatever does not preach Christ is

not Apostolic, even though it be written by St. Peter or St.

Paul.... Whatever does preach Christ would be Apostolic even if it

proceeded from Judas, Pilate, or Herod." `0616108 He rejected the

Epistle of James, and called it an "epistle of straw," because he

could not reconcile it with Paul's doctrine of justification by faith;

he questioned the Epistle to the Hebrews because it seemed to deny the

validity of repentance after baptism (thereby upholding the

Anabaptists); and at first he rated the Apocalypse as an

unintelligible farrago of promises and threats "neither Apostolic

nor Prophetic." `0616109 "The Third Book of Esdras I throw into the

Elbe." `0616110 Though based on whorish reason, most of his

judgments on the canon of Scripture were accepted by later Biblical

critics as intelligent and sound. "The discourses of the Prophets," he

said, "were none of them regularly committed to writing at the time;

their disciples and hearers collected them subsequently....

Solomon's Proverbs were not the work of Solomon." But Catholic

opponents contended that his tests of authenticity and inspiration

were subjective and arbitrary, and they predicted that after his

example other critics would reject, according to their own tastes

and views, other Scriptural books, until nothing would be left of

the Bible as a basis for religious faith.

With the exceptions indicated, Luther defended the Bible as

absolutely and literally true. He admitted that if the story of

Jonah and the whale were not in Scripture he would laugh at it as a

fable; so too with the tales of Eden and the serpent, of Joshua and

the sun; but, he argued, once we accept the divine authorship of the

Bible we must take these stories along with the rest as in every sense

factual. He rejected as a form of atheism the attempts of Erasmus

and others to harmonize Scripture and reason by allegorical

interpretations. `0616111 Having himself won mental peace not

through philosophy but through faith in Christ as presented in the

Gospels, he clung to the Bible as the last refuge of the soul. As

against the humanists and their worship of the pagan classics, he

offered the Bible as no mere product of man's intellect but as a

divine gift and consolation. "It teaches us to see, feel, grasp, and

comprehend faith, hope, and charity far otherwise than mere human

reason can; and when evil oppresses us it teaches how these virtues

throw light upon the darkness, and how, after this poor, miserable

existence of ours on earth, there is another and eternal

life." `0616112 Asked on what basis he rested the divine inspiration

of the Bible, he answered, simply, on its own teaching: none but

God-inspired men could have formed so profound and solacing a faith.

VIII. LUTHER'S THEOLOGY

-

Though his theology was founded with trusting literalness on the

Scriptures, his interpretation unconsciously retained late medieval

traditions. His nationalism made him a modern, his theology belonged

to the Age of Faith. His rebellion was far more against Catholic

organization and ritual than against Catholic doctrine; most of this

remained with him to the end. Even in his rebellion he followed Wyclif

and Huss rather than any new scheme: like theirs his revolt lay in

rejecting the papacy, the councils, the hierarchy, and any other guide

to faith than the Bible; like them he called the pope Antichrist;

and like them he found protection in the state. The line from Wyclif

to Huss to Luther is the main thread of religious development from the

fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Theologically the line was

anchored on Augustine's notions of predestination and grace, which

in turn were rooted in the Epistles of Paul, who had never known

Christ. Nearly all the pagan elements in Christianity fell away as

Protestantism took form; the Judaic contribution triumphed over the

Greek; the Prophets won against the Aristotle of the Scholastics and

the Plato of the humanists; Paul- in the line of the Prophets rather

than that of the Apostles- transformed Jesus into an atonement for

Adam; the Old Testament overshadowed the New; Yahweh darkened the face

of Christ.

Luther's conception of God was Judaic. He could speak with eloquence

of the divine mercy and grace, but more basic in him was the old

picture of God as the avenger, and therefore of Christ as the final

judge. He believed, without recorded protest, that God had drowned

nearly all mankind in a flood, had set fire to Sodom, and had

destroyed lands, peoples, and empires with a breath of His wrath and a

wave of His hand. Luther reckoned that "few are saved, infinitely many

are damned." `0616113 The mitigating myth of Mary as intercessor

dropped out of the story, and left the Last Judgment in all its

stark terror for naturally sinful men. Meanwhile God had appointed

wild beasts, vermin, and wicked women to punish men for their sins.

Occasionally Luther reminded himself that we know nothing about God

except that a cosmic intelligence exists. When one troublesome young

theologian asked him where God had been before the world was

created, he answered, in his blunt Johnsonian way: "He was building

hell for such presumptuous, fluttering, and inquisitive spirits as

you." `0616114

He took heaven and hell for granted, and believed in an early end of

the world. `0616115 He described a heaven of many delights,

including pet dogs "with golden hair shining like precious stones"-

a genial concession to his children, who had expressed concern over

the damnation of their pets. `0616116 He spoke as confidently as

Aquinas about angels as bodiless and beneficent spirits. Sometimes

he represented man as an endless bone of contention between good and

bad angels, to whose differing dispositions and efforts were to be

ascribed all the circumstances of man's fate- a Zoroastrian

intrusion into his theology. He accepted fully the medieval conception

of devils wandering about the earth, bringing temptation, sin, and

misfortune to men, and easing man's way into hell. "Many devils are in

woods, in waters, in wilderness, and in dark, pooly places, ready to

hurt... people; some are also in the thick black clouds." `0616117

Some of this may have been conscious pedagogical invention of

helpful supernatural terrors; but Luther spoke so familiarly of devils

that he seems to have believed all he said of them. "I know Satan very

well," he said, and detailed their conversations with each

other. `0616118 Sometimes he charmed the Devil by playing the

flute; `0616119 sometimes he frightened the poor Devil away by calling

him filthy names. `0616120 He became so accustomed to ascribing to the

Devil the eerie sounds of walls contracting in the cold of the night

that when he was awakened by such noises, and could confidently

conclude that they were made by Satan rambling about, he could

resume his sleep in peace. `0616121 He attributed to diabolical agency

various unpleasant phenomena- hail, thunder, war, plague- and to

divine action all beneficent events; `0616122 he could hardly conceive

of what we call natural law. All the Teutonic folklore about the

poltergeist, or noise-making spirit, was apparently credited by Luther

at its face value. Snakes and monkeys were favorite incarnations of

the Devil. `0616123 The old notion that devils could lie with women

and beget children seemed plausible to him; in one such case he

recommended that the resultant child should be drowned. `0616124 He

accepted magic and witchcraft as realities, and thought it a simple

Christian duty to burn witches at the stake. `0616125 Most of these

ideas were shared by his contemporaries, Catholic or Protestant. The

belief in the power and ubiquity of devils attained in the sixteenth

century an intensity not recorded in any other age; and this

preoccupation with Satan bedeviled much of Protestant theology.

Luther's philosophy was further darkened by the conviction that

man is by nature wicked and prone to sin. *06041 As punishment for the

disobedience of Adam and Eve the divine image was torn from the

human heart, leaving only natural inclinations. "No one is by nature

Christian or pious... the world and the masses are and always will

be unchristian.... The wicked always outnumber the good." `0616126

Even in the good man evil actions outnumber the good, for he cannot

escape from his nature; as Paul said, "There is none righteous, no,

not one." "We are the children of wrath," Luther felt, "and all our

works, intentions, and thoughts are nothing at all in the balance

against our sins." `0616127 So far as good works go, every one of us

would merit damnation. By "good works" Luther meant especially those

forms of ritual piety recommended by the Church- fasting, pilgrimages,

prayers to the saints, Masses for the dead, indulgences,

processions, gifts to the Church; but he also included all "works,

whatever their character." `0616128 He did not question the need of

charity and love for a healthy social life, but he felt that even a

life blessed with such virtues could not earn an eternity of bliss.

"The Gospel preaches nothing of the merit of works; *06042 he that

says the Gospel requires works for salvation, I say flat and plain

he is a liar." `0616129 No amount of good works could atone for the

sins- each an insult to an infinite deity- committed by the best of

men. Only the redeeming sacrifice of Christ- the suffering and death

of the Son of God- could atone for man's sins; and only belief in that

divine atonement can save us from hell. As Paul said to the Romans,

"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt

believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou

shalt be saved." `0616130 It is this faith that "justifies"- makes a

man just despite his sins, and eligible for salvation. Christ

Himself said: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but

he that believeth not shall be damned." `0616131 "Wherefore," reasoned

Luther, "it ought to be the first concern of every Christian to lay

aside all trust in works, and more and more strengthen faith

alone." `0616132 And he proceeded, in a passage that disturbed some

theologians but comforted many sinners:

-

Jesus Christ stoops and lets the sinner jump on His back, and so

saves him from death.... What a consolation for pious souls to put Him

on like this and wrap Him in my sins, your sins, the sins of the whole

universe, and consider Him thus bearing all our sins!... When you

see that your sins cleave to Him, then you will be safe from sin,

death, and hell. Christianity is nothing but a continual exercise in

feeling that you have no sin although you sin, but that your sins

are thrown on Christ. It is enough to know the Lamb that bears the

sins of the world; sin cannot detach us from Him, were we to commit

a thousand fornications a day, or as many murders. Is not that good

news if, when some one is full of sins, the Gospel comes and tells

him: Have confidence and believe, and henceforth your sins are

remitted? Once this stop is pulled out, the sins are forgiven; there

is nothing more to work for. `0616133

-

This may have been intended to comfort and revive some sensitive

souls who were taking their sins too much to heart; Luther could

recall how he too had once magnified the majestic unforgivability of

his sins. But to some it sounded very much like Tetzel's alleged "drop

the coin in the box and all your sins fly away"; faith was now to do

all the wonders formerly claimed for confession, absolution,

contribution, and indulgence. Still more arresting was a passage in

which the hearty and ebullient Luther found a good word to say for sin

itself. When the Devil tempts us with annoying persistency, he said,

it may be wise to yield him a sin or two.

-

Seek out the society of your boon companions, drink, play, talk

bawdy, and amuse yourself. One must sometimes commit a sin out of hate

and contempt for the Devil, so as not to give him the chance to make

one scrupulous over mere nothings; if one is too frightened of

sinning, one is lost.... Oh, if I could find some really good sin that

would give the Devil a toss! `0616134

-

Such lusty and humorous obiter dicta invited misconstruction. Some

of Luther's followers interpreted him as condoning fornication,

adultery, murder. A Lutheran professor had to caution Lutheran

preachers to say as little as possible about justification by faith

alone. `0616135 However, by faith Luther meant no merely

intellectual assent to a proposition, but vital, personal

self-committal to a practical belief; and he was confident that

complete belief in God's grace given because of Christ's redeeming

death would make a man so basically good that an occasional frolic

with the flesh would do no lasting harm; faith would soon bring the

sinner back to spiritual health. He heartily approved of good

works; `0616136 what he denied was their efficacy for salvation. "Good

works," he said, "do not make a good man, but a good man does good

works." `0616137 And what makes a man good? Faith in God and Christ.

How does a man come to such saving faith? Not through his merits,

but as a divine gift granted, regardless of merits, to those whom

God has chosen to save. As St. Paul put it, remembering the case of

Pharaoh, "God has mercy on whom He will have mercy; and whom He

wills He hardens." `0616138 By divine predestination the elect are

chosen for eternal happiness, the rest are left graceless and damned

to everlasting hell. `0616139

-

This is the acme of faith, to believe that God, Who saves so few and

condemns so many, is merciful; that He is just Who has made us

necessarily doomed to damnation, so that...... He seems to delight

in the tortures of the wretched, and to be more deserving of hatred

than of love. If by any effort of reason I could conceive how God, Who

shows so much anger and iniquity, could be merciful and just, there

would be no need of faith. `0616140

-

So Luther, in his medieval reaction against a paganizing Renaissance

Church, went back not only to Augustine but to Tertullian: Credo quia

incredibile; it seemed to him a merit to believe in predestination

because it was, to reason, unbelievable. Yet it was, he thought, by

hard logic that he was driven to this incredibility. The theologian

who had written so eloquently about the "freedom of a Christian man"

now (1525), in a treatise De servo arbitrio, argued that if God is

omnipotent He must be the sole cause of all actions, including

man's; that if God is omniscient He foresees everything, and

everything must happen as He has foreseen it; that therefore all

events, through all time, have been predetermined in His mind, and are

forever fated to be. Luther concluded, like Spinoza, that man is as

"unfree as a block of wood, a rock, a lump of clay, or a pillar of

salt." `0616141 More strangely still, the same divine foresight

deprives the angels, nay, God Himself, of freedom; He too must act

as He has foreseen; His foresight is His fate. A lunatic fringe

interpreted this doctrine ad libitum: a youth beheaded his brother

and attributed the act to God, of Whom he was merely the helpless

agent; and another logician stamped his wife to death with his

heels, crying, "Now is the Father's will accomplished." `0616142

Most of these conclusions lay annoyingly implicit in medieval

theology, and were deduced by Luther from Paul and Augustine with

irrefutable consistency. He seemed willing to accept medieval theology

if he might disown the Renaissance Church; he could tolerate the

predestination of the multitudinous damned more easily than the

authority of scandalous tax-gathering popes. He rejected the

ecclesiastical definition of the Church as the prelacy; he defined

it as the community of believers in the divinity and redeeming passion

of Christ; but he echoed papal doctrine when he wrote: "All people who

seek and labor to come to God through any other means than only

through Christ (as Jews, Turks, Papists, false saints, heretics, etc.)

walk in horrible darkness and error, and so at last must die and be

lost in their sins." `0616143 Here, reborn in Wittenberg, was the

teaching of Boniface VIII and the Council of Rome (1302) that extra

ecclesiam nulla salus - "no salvation outside the Church."

The most revolutionary item in Luther's theology was his

dethronement of the priest. He allowed for priests not as

indispensable dispensers of the sacraments, nor as privileged

mediators with God, but only as servants chosen by each congregation

to minister to its spiritual wants. By marrying and raising a family

these ministers would shed the aura of sanctity that had made the

priesthood awesomely powerful; they would be "first among equals," but

any man might at need perform their functions, even to absolving a

penitent from sin. Monks should abandon their selfish and often idle

isolation, should marry and labor with the rest; the man at the

plow, the woman in the kitchen, serve God better than the monk

mumbling in stupefying repetition unintelligible prayers. And

prayers should be. the direct communion of the soul with God, not

appeals to half-legendary saints. The adoration of the saints, in

Luther's judgment, was not a friendly and consoling intercourse of the

lonely living with the holy dead; it was a relapse into primitive

polytheistic idolatry. `0616144

As for the sacraments, viewed as priestly ceremonies conferring

divine grace, Luther severely reduced their role. They involve no

miraculous powers, and their efficacy depends, not on their forms

and formulas, but on the faith of the recipient. Confirmation,

matrimony, episcopal ordination of priests, and extreme unction of the

dying are rites to which no special promise of divine grace is

attached in Scripture; the new religion could dispense with them.

Baptism has the warrant of St. John the Baptist's example. Auricular

confession may be retained as a sacrament, despite some doubt as to

its Scriptural basis. *06043 The supreme sacrament is the Lord's

Supper, or Eucharist. The notion that a priest, by the incantation

of his words, can change bread into Christ seemed to Luther absurd and

blasphemous; nevertheless, he argued, Christ of His own will comes

down from heaven to be present consubstantially with the bread and

wine of the sacrament. The Eucharist is no priestly magic, but a

divine and perpetual miracle. `0616145

Luther's doctrine of the sacraments, his replacement of the Mass

by the Lord's Supper, and his theory of salvation by faith rather than

by good works. undermined the authority of the clergy in northern

Germany, Furthering this process, Luther rejected episcopal courts and

canon law. In Lutheran Europe civil courts became the only courts,

secular power the only legal power. Secular rulers appointed Church

personnel, appropriated Church property, took over Church schools

and monastic charities. Theoretically Church and state remained

independent; actually the Church became subject to the state. The

Lutheran movement, which thought to submit all life to theology,

unwittingly, unwillingly, advanced that pervasive secularization which

is a basic theme of modern life.

IX. THE REVOLUTIONIST

-

When some bishops sought to silence Luther and his followers, he

emitted an angry roar that was almost a tocsin of revolution. In a

pamphlet "Against the Falsely Called Spiritual Order of the Pope and

the Bishops" (July 1522), he branded the prelates as the "biggest

wolves" of all, and called upon all good Germans to drive them out

by force.

-

It were better that every bishop were murdered, every foundation

or cloister rooted out, than that one soul should be destroyed, let

alone that all souls should be lost for the sake of their worthless

trumpery and idolatry. Of what use are they who thus live in lust,

nourished by the sweat and labor of others?... If they accepted

God's Word, and sought the life of the soul, God would be with

them.... But if they will not hear God's Word, but rage and rave

with bannings and burnings, killings and every evil, what do they

better deserve than a strong uprising which will sweep them from the

earth? And we would smile did it happen. All who contribute body,

goods, and honor that the rule of the bishops may be destroyed are

God's dear children and true Christians. `0616146

-

He was at this time almost as critical of the state as of the

Church. Stung by the prohibition of the sale or possession of his

New Testament in regions under orthodox rulers, he wrote, in the

fall of 1522, a treatise On Secular Authority: To What Extent It

Should Be Obeyed. He began amiably enough by approving St. Paul's

doctrine of civil obedience and the divine origin of the state. This

apparently contradicted his own teaching as to the perfect freedom

of the Christian man. Luther explained that though true Christians

do not need law, and will not use law or force on one another, they

must obey the law as good examples to the majority, who are not true

Christians, for without law the sinful nature of man would tear a

society to pieces. Nevertheless the authority of the state should

end where the realm of the spirit begins. Who are these princes that

assume to dictate what people shall read or believe?

-

You must know that from the beginning of the world a wise prince

is a rare bird indeed; still more so a pious prince. They are

usually the greatest fools or the worst knaves on earth. They are

God's jailers and hangmen, and His divine wrath needs them to punish

the wicked and preserve outward peace.... I would, however, in all

fidelity advise those blinded folk to take heed to the short saying in

Psalm CVII: "He poureth contempt upon princes." I swear to you by

God that if through your fault this little text becomes effective

against you, you are lost, though every one of you be as mighty as the

Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

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