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Luther’s friends and admirers were at a later date loud in their praise of the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans and on that to the Galatians which he commenced immediately after, and looked upon these as marking the dawn of a new epoch in theology. Luther himself, with more accuracy, designated the first disputations, of which we shall come to speak presently, as the “commencement of the gospel business.”

Melanchthon in his short sketch of Luther’s life speaks pompously of these lectures and manifests his entire unacquaintance with the old Church and the truths for which she stood.

“In the opinion of the wise and pious the light of the new teaching first broke forth, after a long and dark night, in the Commentary on these Epistles. There Luther pointed out the true distinction between the law and the gospel; there he refuted the Pharisaical errors which then ruled in the schools and in the pulpits, namely, that man was able to obtain forgiveness of sin by his own efforts and could be justified before God by the performance of outward works. He brought back souls to the Son of God, he pointed to the Lamb, Who bore the guilt of our sins. He demonstrated that sin was forgiven for the sake of the Son of God and that such a favour ought to be accepted in faith. He also shed a great light on the other articles of faith.”[795]

Mathesius, Luther’s pupil and eulogist, in his sermons on Luther, points out, in the following passionate words, the importance of the lectures and disputations held by his master: “Dr. Luther in all his lectures and disputations chiefly treats of this question and article, whether the true faith by which we are to live a Christian life and die a happy death is to be learned from Holy Scripture or from the godless heathen Aristotle, on whom the Doctors of the Schools attempted to base the doctrine of the Romish Church and of the monks.” “This is the chief issue between Dr. Luther and the Sophists.... Young Dr. Luther has solemnly sworn, in due form, a true, public and godly oath that he will hold fast by the holy and certain Scriptures; that it was more reasonable that we should rely in matters of faith and conscience on the godly Scriptures rather than stake our souls and consciences on the teaching of darksome Scotus, foolish Albertus, questionable Thomas of Aquin, or of the Moderns or Occamists.... He insisted upon this in his writings and disputations before ever he began his controversy on Indulgences. For this reason he was at the time scolded as a heretic and condemned by many because he scorned all the High Schools and the learned men.... Although both his brethren and other monks questioned all this, yet they were unable to bring forward anything effective against him and his weighty reasoning.”[796]

Luther’s sermons and letters of the years 1516 to 1518 bear witness to the commotion caused by his theological opinions.

The “new theology” which was being proclaimed at Wittenberg was discussed with dismay, particularly at Erfurt and in the more conservative monasteries. Andreas Carlstadt, Luther’s colleague at the University, and Peter Lupinus, a former professor at Wittenberg, were at first among his opponents, but were speedily won over. Carlstadt indeed, as his 152 theses of April, 1517 show, even went further on the new lines than Luther himself.[797] Another of his colleagues at the University, who at a later date proved a more trustworthy ally, was Nicholas Amsdorf. Schurf, the lawyer, was one of his most able patrons among the lay professors. Spalatin, Court Chaplain, vigorously but prudently advocated his cause with the Elector. At Wittenberg Luther’s party speedily gained the ascendant. The students were full of enthusiasm for the bold, ready and combative teacher, whose frequent use of German in his lectures—at that time an unheard-of thing—also pleased them.[798] The disputations, particularly, could thus be conducted with less constraint and far more forcibly.

It is hard to say how far Luther realised the danger of the path he was treading.

He wrote to Dr. Christopher Scheurl, a Nuremberg lawyer, who was also one of his early patrons and protectors, thanking him in the humble words of exaggerated humanistic courtesy for the praise he had bestowed upon him: he (Luther) recognized that the favour and applause of the world were dangerous for us, that self-complacency and pride were man’s greatest enemies. He, nevertheless, tells him in the same letter that Staupitz, at one time his Superior and Director, had repeatedly said to him much to his terror: “I praise Christ in you, and I am forced to believe Him in you.”[799]

In his exultation at the great success which he had achieved at Wittenberg he says joyfully in the spring of 1517 in a letter to a friend: “Our theology and St. Augustine are progressing happily and prevail at our University (‘procedunt et regnant’, cp. Ps. xliv. 5). Aristotle is at a discount and is hurrying to everlasting destruction. People are quite disgusted with the lectures on the Sentences [of Peter Lombard], and no one can be sure of an audience unless he expounds this theology, i.e. the Bible or St. Augustine, or some other teacher of note in the Church.”[800]

He continued to rifle St. Augustine’s writings for passages which were apparently favourable to his views. He says, later, that he ran through the writings of this Father of the Church with such eagerness that he devoured rather than read them.[801] He certainly did not allow himself sufficient time to appreciate properly the profound teachings of this, the greatest Father of the Church, and best authority on grace and justification. Even Protestant theologians now admit that he quoted Augustine where the latter by no means agrees with him.[802] His own friends and contemporaries, such as Melanchthon, for instance, admitted the contradiction existing between Luther’s ideas and those of St. Augustine on the most vital points; it was, however, essential that this Father of the Church, so Melanchthon writes to one of his confidants, should be cited as in “entire agreement” on account of the high esteem in which he was generally held.[803] Luther himself was, consciously or unconsciously, in favour of these tactics; he tampered audaciously with the text of the Doctor of the Church in order to extract from his writings proofs favourable to his own doctrine; or at the very least, trusting to his memory, he made erroneous citations, when it would have been easy for him to verify the quotations at their source; the only excuse to be alleged on his behalf in so grave a matter of faith and conscience is his excessive precipitation and his superficiality.

Luther’s lectures on the Epistle to the Galatians commenced on October 27, 1516.

These he published in 1519 in an amended form,[804] whereas those on the Epistle to the Romans never appeared to him fit for publication. Notes of the original lectures on Galatians are said to be in the possession of Dr. Krafft of Elberfeld, and will in all probability appear in the Weimar edition of Luther’s works.[805]

The lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews and on that to Titus followed in 1517. Notes of the former, as stated above, exist at Rome, and their approaching publication will throw a clearer light on the change in the theological views of their author.

In the printed Commentary on Galatians Luther’s teaching appears in a more advanced form. His development had not only progressed during the course of the lectures, but the time which elapsed before their publication brought him fresh material which he introduced into the Commentary. It would be essential to have them in the form in which they were delivered in order to be able to follow up the process which went forward in his mind. It is nevertheless worth while to dwell on the work and at the same time to compare parallel passages from Luther’s other Commentary on Galatians—to be referred to immediately—were it only on account of the delight he takes in referring to this Epistle, or of the fact that his exposition of it runs counter to the whole of tradition.

Luther ever had the highest opinion of the Epistle to the Galatians and of his own Commentaries on it. At a later date he says jokingly: “Epistola ad Galatas is my Epistle to which I have plighted my troth; my own Katey von Bora.”[806] Melanchthon praises Luther’s Commentary on Galatians in a more serious fashion and says, it was in truth “the coil of Theseus by the aid of which we are enabled to wander through the labyrinth of biblical learning.”[807]

Besides the shorter Commentary on Galatians published in 1519 there is also a much longer one compiled from notes of Luther’s later lectures, made public in 1535 by his pupil Rörer, together with a Preface by Luther himself.[808] Protestants consider it as “the most important literary product of his academic career” and, in fact, as “the most important of his theological works.”[809] In what follows we shall rely, as we said before, on the sources which afford the most accurate picture of his views, i.e. on both the shorter and the longer redaction of his Commentary on Galatians, especially where the latter repeats in still more forcible language views already contained in the former.

It is well to know that, in his expositions of the Epistle to the Galatians, Luther’s antagonism to the Catholic doctrine of Works, Justification and Original Sin is carried further than in any other of his exegetical writings, until, indeed, it verges on the paradoxical. Nowhere else does the author so unhesitatingly read his own ideas into Holy Scripture, or turn his back so completely on the most venerable traditions of the Church.

For instance, he shows how God by His grace was obliged to renew, from the root upwards, the tree of human nature, which had fallen and become rotten to the core, in order that it might bear fruit which was not mere poison and sin and such as to render it worthy to be cast into hell fire. Everything is made to depend upon that terrible doctrine of Divine Predestination, which inexorably condemns a portion of mankind to hell. It never occurred to him that this doctrine of a Predestination to hell was in conflict with God’s goodness and mercy, at least, he never had the least hesitation in advocating it. The only preparation for salvation is the predestination to heaven of the man upon whom God chooses to have mercy, seeing that man, on his part, is utterly unable to do anything (“unica dispositio ad gratiam est æterna Dei electio”). Man is justified by the faith, which is wrought by God’s gracious Word and Spirit, but this faith is really confidence in God’s pardoning grace through Christ (“Sufficit Christus per fidem, ut sis iustus”). In the printed Commentary on Galatians we already have Luther’s new doctrine of the absolute assurance of salvation by faith alone.

This later discovery he insists upon, with wearisome reiteration, in the Commentary on Galatians as the only means of bringing relief to the conscience. We shall have occasion later (ch. x., 1, 2) to speak of the origin of this new element in his theology, which he made his own before the publication of the first Commentary on Galatians.

He entirely excludes love from this faith, even the slightest commencement of it, in more forcible terms than ever. “That faith alone justifies,” he writes, “which apprehends Christ by means of the Word, and is beautified and adorned by it, not that faith which includes love.... How does this take place, and how is the Christian made so righteous?” he asks. “By means of the noble treasure and pearl, which is called Christ, and which he makes his own by faith.” “Therefore it is mere idle, extravagant talk when those fools, the Sophists [the scholastic theologians] chatter about the fides formata, i.e. a faith which is to take its true form and shape from love.”[810] The relation which exists between this view of a mechanically operating faith (which moreover God alone produces in us) and the Lutheran doctrine of the exclusive action of God in the “dead tree” of human nature, cannot fail to be perceived. How could, indeed, such a view of God’s action admit of any real, organic co-operation on the part of man, even when exalted and strengthened by grace, in the work of his own eternal salvation by virtue of faith working through love?

God’s mercy, Luther says, is made known to man by a whisper from above (the “secret voice”): Thy sins are forgiven thee; the perception of this is not, however, essential; probably, Luther recognised that this was altogether too problematical. Hence there is no escape from the fact that justification must always remain uncertain. The author of this doctrine demands, however, that man should induce in himself a kind of certainty, in the same way that he demands certainty in the acceptance of all facts of faith. “You must assume it as certain that your service is pleasing to God. But this you can never do unless you have the Holy Ghost.”[811] How are we to know whether we have the Holy Ghost? Again he answers: “We must accept as certain and acknowledge that we are the temple of God.”[812] “We must be assured that not our service only but also our person is pleasing to God.”[813] He goes on in this tone without in the least solving the difficulty.[814] He declares that we must risk, try, and exercise assurance. This, however, merely depends upon a self-acquired dexterity,[815] upon human ability, which, moreover, frequently leaves even the strongest in the lurch, as we shall see later from Luther’s own example and that of his followers.

He goes so far in speaking of faith and grace in the larger Commentary on Galatians, as to brand the most sublime and holy works, namely, prayer and meditation, as “idolatry” unless performed in accordance with the only true principle of faith, viz. with his doctrine regarding justification by faith alone. This can be more readily understood when we consider that according to him, man, in spite of his resistance to concupiscence, is, nevertheless, on account of the same, guilty of the sins of avarice, anger, impurity, a list to which he significantly adds “et cetera,”[816]

He had expressed himself in a similar way in the shorter Commentary, but did not think his expressions in that book strong enough adequately to represent his ideas.[817]

As he constantly connects his statements with what he looks upon as the main contentions of St. Paul in the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, we may briefly remind our readers of the interpretation which the older theology had ever placed upon them.

The Apostle Paul teaches, according to the Fathers and the greatest theologians of the Middle Ages, that both Jews and heathen might attain to salvation and life by faith. He proves this by showing that the heathen were not saved by the works of nature, nor the Jews by the works of the Mosaic Law; but he does not by any means exclude works altogether as unnecessary for justification. In the important passage of the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. i. 17) where Paul quotes the words of Habacuc: “The just man liveth by faith,” there was no call to define more clearly the nature of justifying faith, or to explain to what extent it must be a living faith showing itself in works in charity and in hope. To exclude works from faith, as Luther assumes him to do, was very far from his intention in that passage. Nor is this idea involved in the saying which Luther so frequently quotes (Rom. iii. 28): “We account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the law,” for here he merely excludes the works “of the law,” i.e. according to the context such works as do not rest on faith but precede faith, whether the purely outward works of the Mosaic ceremonial law, or other natural works done apart from, or before, Christ. We shall speak later of Luther’s interpolation in this passage of the word “alone” after “faith” in his translation of the Bible (see vol. v., xxxiv. 3).

When St. Paul elsewhere describes more narrowly the nature of justifying faith (a fact to which both the Fathers and the theologians draw attention), he is quite emphatic in asserting that the sinner is not admitted by God to grace and made partaker of the heavenly promises merely by virtue of a dead faith, but by a real, supernatural faith which works by charity (Gal. v. 6). This in previous ages had been rightly understood to mean not merely an acceptance of the Word of God and the intimate persuasion of the remission of one’s sins, but a faith enlivened by grace with charity. In confirmation of this, other well-known passages of the New Testament were always quoted: “Wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” “Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith only?” “For even as the body without the spirit is dead: so also faith without works is dead.” “Labour the more that by good works you may make sure your calling and election.”[818]

Some important disputations which the youthful University Professor held on theses and “paradoxa” formulated by himself prove how his teaching was taking ever deeper root at Wittenberg and elsewhere. The story of these disputations casts light on his peculiar tactics, viz. to meet every kind of opposition by still more forcibly and defiantly advancing his own propositions.