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The Saxon, or more correctly German, Congregation of Augustinians, at the time of Luther’s journey to Rome, had reached a crisis in its history.

Founded on the old Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, by the pious and zealous Andreas Proles (1503), and provided by him with excellent statutes intended to promote a reform of discipline, the Congregation had, since its foundation, been withdrawn from the control of the Provincial of the unreformed Augustinian Province of Saxony in order the better to preserve its stricter observance.[65] It stood directly under the General of the Order at Rome, whose German representative was a Vicar-General—in Luther’s time, Staupitz. He was simply styled Vicar, or sometimes Provincial. The monasteries under him numbered about thirty, and were distributed throughout several so-called districts, each headed by a Rural Vicar.

Staupitz’s aim was to bring about a reunion of the German Congregation with the numerous non-observant monasteries in Germany, an amalgamation which would probably have led indirectly to his becoming the head of all these communities. He had already, September 30, 1510, after sounding the Pope, published a papal Bull approving such a union, and, by virtue of the same, begun to style himself Provincial of Thuringia and Saxony. His efforts were, however, met by decided opposition within the Congregation. Certain houses which were in favour of the old state of things and feared that union would lead to a relaxation of discipline, vehemently opposed Staupitz and his plans. To this party belonged also the Erfurt monastery, and Luther himself took an active part in the position assumed by his house. The object of his visit to Halle with Dr. Nathin to see Prince Adolf of Anhalt, the Cathedral Provost, had been to obtain a “petition” in favour of the “observance.” The opposition became acute when the Bull above referred to was published by Staupitz, and we may consider the protest of the seven Observantine monasteries against the Bull as the direct cause of Luther’s despatch to Rome.

The monk, then seven-and-twenty years of age, with his written authority to act as procurator in the case (“litis procurator” is what Cochlæus, who was well informed on these matters, styles him), set out forthwith on his journey. It was in the autumn 1510,[66] and Luther was then lecturing on the third book of the Sentences. His absence lasted four or five months, i.e. until the spring 1511, when we again find him at Erfurt. Luther, and those who felt with him, found no difficulty in reconciling their efforts for the preservation of the observance against the will of Staupitz, with due submission to him as their Superior.

Another monk of the Order accompanied Luther to the capital of Christendom as the Rule enjoined in the case of journeys. The joy at such an opportunity of seeing the Eternal City, of quenching his ardent thirst for knowledge by the acquisition of new experiences and of gaining the graces attached to so holy a pilgrimage, may well have hurried his steps during the wearisome journey, which in those days had to be undertaken on foot. He had even, according to a later statement, made the resolution to cleanse his conscience—so frequently tortured by fears—by a general confession, indeed he once says that this was his main object, passing over the real reason.

With regard to the effect of the journey on the question concerning the Order, according to Cochlæus a certain compromise was reached, the details of which are, however, not told us. At any rate Staupitz was unable to carry out his plan and eventually gave it up. The dispute between “Observants” and “non-Observants” thus started, as we may gather from statements made by Luther to which we refer later, far from being at an end became more and more acute. It appears to have done untold harm to the Congregation and to have largely contributed to its fall.

What effect had the visit to Italy and Rome upon the development of the young monk?

Thousands have been cheered in spirit by the visit to the tombs of the Apostles; prayer at the holy places of Rome, the immediate proximity of the Vicar of Christ and of the world-embracing government of the Church made them feel what they had never felt before, the pulse-beat of the heart of Christendom, and they returned full of enthusiasm, strengthened and inspirited, and with the desire of working for souls in accordance with the mind of the Church.

With Luther this was not the case.

He was much less impressed by the Rome of the Saints than by the corruption then rampant in ecclesiastical circles.

On first perceiving Rome from the heights of Monte Mario, he devoutly greeted the city, as all pilgrims were wont to do, overjoyed at having reached the goal of their long pilgrimage.[67] After that, he untiringly occupied himself, so far as his chief business permitted, in seeing all that Rome had to show. He assures us that he believed everything that was told him of the real or legendary reminiscences of the holy places both above and under ground. He does not, however, appear to have been very careful in his choice of guides and acquaintances, for the anecdotes concerning the condition of things at Rome which he brought back with him to his own country were, if not untrue, at least exceedingly spiteful. The Augustinians whom he there met had not the spirit of the reform inaugurated by Proles. Their southern freedom and lack of restraint found all too strong an echo in Luther’s character. The general confession he had projected was probably never made,[68] for, as he asserts later, he had not found among the clergy a single suitable, worthy man. During his distracting stay in the Eternal City he said Mass, so he tells us, perhaps once, perhaps ten times, i.e. occasionally, not regularly.[69] He was greatly scandalised at much he heard and saw, partly owing to his looking at things with the critical eye of a northerner, partly owing to the really existing moral disorders.

The Rome of that day was the Rome of Julius II, the then Pope, and of his predecessor Alexander VI; it was the Rome of the Popes of the height of the Renaissance, glorified by art, but inwardly deeply debased. The capital of Christendom, under the influence of the frivolity which had seized the occupants of the Papal throne and invaded the ranks of the higher clergy, had proved false to her dignity and forgetful of the fact that the eyes of the Faithful who visited Rome from every quarter of the globe were jealously fixed upon her in their anxiety lest the godless spirit of the world should poison the very heart of the Church.

Instead of being edified by the good which he undoubtedly encountered and by the great ideal of the Church which no shadow can ever darken, Luther, with his critically disposed mind, proved all too receptive to the contrary impressions and allowed himself to be unduly influenced by the dark side of things, i.e. the corruption of morals. Subsequently, in his public controversies and private Table-Talk, he tells quite a number of disreputable tales,[70] which, whether based on fact or not, were all too favourable to his anti-Roman tendencies. He was in the habit of saying, in his usual tone, that whoever looked about him a little in Rome, would find abominations compared to which those of Sodom were mere child’s play. He declares that he heard from the mouth of Papal courtiers the statement: “It cannot go on much longer, it must break up.” In the company in which he mixed he heard these words let fall: “If there be a Hell, then Rome is built over it.” He says that he had heard it said of one, who expressed his grief at such a state of things, that he was a “buon cristiano” which meant much the same as a good-natured simpleton. In his proneness to accept evil tales he believed, at least so he asserts later, the statement made in his presence, that many priests were in the habit of repeating jokes at Mass in place of the words of consecration. He relates that he even questioned whether the bishops and priests at Rome, the prelates of the Curia, aye, the Pope himself, had any Christian belief left. It is not worth while to go into the details of the scandals he records, because, as Hausrath justly remarks, “it is questionable how much weight is due to statements which, in part, date from the later years of his life, when he had so completely altered.”[71]

In his accounts the share which he himself actually took in the pious pilgrim-exercises of the time is kept very much in the background.

He came to the so-called Scala Santa at the Lateran, and saw the Faithful, from motives of penance, ascending the holy steps on their knees. He turned away from this touching popular veneration of the sufferings of the Redeemer, and preferred not to follow the example of the other pilgrims. An account given by his son Paul in 1582 says that he then quoted the Bible verse: “The just man liveth by faith.” If it be a fact that he made use of these words which were to assume so great importance and to be so sadly misinterpreted in his subsequent theology, it was certainly not in their later sense. In reality we have here in all probability an instance of a later opinion being gratuitously anticipated, for Luther himself declares that he discovered his gospel only after he had taken his Doctor’s degree, and this we shall show abundantly further on. Older Protestant writers have frequently represented the scene at the steps of the Lateran in unhistorical colours owing to their desire to furnish a graphic historical beginning of the change in Luther’s mind. Mylius of Jena was one of the first to do this.[72] Mylius, in 1595, quite falsely asserts that Luther had already commented on the Epistle to the Romans previous to his journey to Rome, and adds that he had already then noted the later interpretation of the Bible text in question. It is true that his son Paul, where he speaks of Luther’s exclamation as having been communicated to him by his father, expressly states that “he had then, through the spirit of Jesus, come to the knowledge of the truth of the holy gospel.” But Köstlin’s Biography of Luther rightly denies this, and describes it as an “exaggeration”[73]—“error” would have been better—for the assumption to which Luther’s friends still cling with such affection, namely, that from the very commencement of his journey to Rome he had been “haunted by the Bible text concerning justification by faith,” at a time “when he still was striving to serve God by his own works,” must be struck out of history as a mere fiction.[74]

At Rome Luther’s conviction of the authority of the Holy See was in no wise shaken, in spite of what some people have thought. All the scandals had not been able to achieve this. As late as 1516 he was still preaching in entire accordance with the traditional doctrine of the Church on the power of the Papacy, and it is worth while to quote his words in order to show the Catholic thoughts which engaged him while wandering through the streets of Rome. “If Christ had not entrusted all power to one man, the Church would not have been perfect because there would have been no order and each one would have been able to say he was led by the Holy Spirit. This is what the heretics did, each one setting up his own principle. In this way as many Churches arose as there were heads. Christ therefore wills, in order that all may be assembled in one unity, that His Power be exercised by one man to whom also He commits it. He has, however, made this Power so strong that He looses all the powers of Hell (without injury) against it. He says: ‘The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it,’ as though He said: ‘They will fight against it but never overcome it,’ so that in this way it is made manifest that this power is in reality from God and not from man. Wherefore whoever breaks away from this unity and order of the Power, let him not boast of great enlightenment and wonderful works, as our Picards and other heretics do, ‘for much better is obedience than the victims of fools who know not what evil they do’ (Eccles. iv. 17).”[75] That, when in Rome, he was still full of reverence for the Pope, Luther shows in his Table-Talk, though his language on this occasion can only be described as filthy.[76]

His ideas with regard to the Church’s means of Grace, the Mass, Indulgences and Prayer had not, at the time of his return to Germany, undergone any theoretical change, though it is highly probable that his practical observance of the Church’s law suffered considerably. The fact is, his character was not yet sufficiently formed when he started on his journey; he was, as Oldecop says, “a wild young fellow.”[77]

Luther later on relates it as a joke, that, when at Rome, he had been so zealous in gaining Indulgences that he had wished his parents were already dead so that he might apply to their souls the great Indulgences obtainable there.[78] Of the Masses which he celebrated in the Holy City he assures us—again more by way of a joke than as an exact statement of fact—that he said them so piously and slowly that three, or even six, Italian priests or monks had finished all their Masses in succession before he had come to the end of one. He even declares that in Rome Mass is said so rapidly that ten, one after another, occupied only one hour, and that he himself had been urged on with the cry: “Hurry up, Brother, hurry up.” Whoever is familiar with the older Luther’s manner of speech, will be on his guard against taking such jests seriously or as proof of scrupulosity; he is, in reality, merely laying stress on the blatant contrast between his own habit and the precipitation of the Italians.

In 1519, i.e. not yet ten years after Luther’s visit, his pupil Oldecop came to Rome and set to work to make diligent enquiries concerning the stay there of his already famous master, with whose teaching, however, he did not agree. As he says in his “Chronik,” published not long since, he learned that Luther had taken lessons in Hebrew from a Jew called Jakob, who gave himself out to be a physician. He sought out the Jew, probably a German, and heard from him that “Martinus had begged the Pope to be allowed to study in Italy for ten years in secular dress,” but that, owing to the absence of any authorisation from his Superiors, his request had been refused, and Martinus, instead of being privileged to dress as a secular priest, had been obliged to retain his “cowl,” i.e. the habit of his Order. Oldecop then betook himself to the official who, as he learnt, had drafted the monk’s petition, and who fully confirmed the Jew’s statement. There is no reason for doubting these new tales,[79] notwithstanding the fact that in some of the other statements made by Oldecop, especially those in which he had no personal concern, some unintentional errors occur. According to the character given him by his editor Carl Euling, he was “an educated and honourable man, with good judgment.”[80] Notice deserves to be taken of a minor detail of the incident which confirms the truth of this account, namely, that the official, affrighted at the mention of Luther’s name, was at first unwilling to speak, and then begged that the fact of his having had dealings with him should not be betrayed. The man, who is here portrayed to the life, after he became more loquacious, also expressed the opinion that had Luther been allowed to take off the cowl he would never have put it on again; a view, of course, merely based on the later course of events. Luther’s desire for learning was so great, and his impulsive character so marked, that it is quite possible that he cherished such a project. Nor was there anything so very singular in the plan, for about that time other monks had been secularised at their own request. In a Brief dated January 26, 1517, Erasmus, who was an Augustinian canon, received permission to wear the dress of a secular priest, a fact to which Luther, on occasion, makes allusion. As such a privilege, even though restricted as to duration, would without doubt have appealed to the freedom of thought which at that time Luther was beginning to cultivate, the fact that it was refused owing to the lack of authorisation by his German Superiors assuredly cannot have sweetened his recollection of the Roman Curia; its only effect was probably to wound his vanity. He himself never speaks of this petition; he had no cause to do so, and indeed it ill agreed with the legend which, with advancing years, he began to weave about his life in the monastery. On the other hand, we have probably a distorted version of the incident in an assertion, circulated later by his opponents, viz. that during his stay at Rome he had sought secularisation in order to be able to marry.[81]

Regarding the morals of the Italians and not the Romans only, he makes many unfavourable and even unfair statements in his later reminiscences of his wanderings through their country. The only things which found favour in his eyes were, in fact, their charity and benevolence as displayed in some of the hospitals, particularly in Florence, the sobriety of the people and, at Rome, the careful carrying out of ecclesiastical business. An evil breath of moral laxity was passing over the whole country, more especially, however, over the rich and opulent towns and the higher classes, infected as they were with the indifferentism of the Humanists. Those travelling alone found themselves exposed in the inns to the worst moral dangers. We must also call to mind that, in those very years the Neapolitan, or French disease, as syphilis was then called, infested a wide area of this otherwise delightful country, having been introduced by the troops who came to southern Italy. The places where strangers from other lands were obliged to spend the night on their travels were hotbeds of infection for both body and soul.

Luther returned to Germany towards the month of February, 1511, though he was no longer the same man as when he set out. He said, after his apostasy: “I, like a fool, carried onions to Italy and brought garlic (i.e. worse stuff) back with me.” As a controversialist he declared that he would not take 100,000 gulden to have missed seeing Rome, as otherwise he would feel that he was doing the Papacy an injustice; he only wished that everyone who was about to become a priest would visit Rome.

A notable result of his stay in Italy was, that Luther, after his return to the monastery, immediately changed his standpoint regarding the “observance.” Sent to Rome for the defence of the “observance,” he now unexpectedly veered round and became its opponent. “He deserted to Staupitz” as Cochlæus puts it, evidently using the very words of the Observantines, and soon Luther was seen passionately assailing the Observantines, whose spokesman he had been shortly before. In all likelihood his changed view stood in some connection with a change in his domicile. No sooner had he returned to the Observantine monastery of Erfurt, than he left it for Wittenberg, where he was to take his degree of Doctor of Divinity and then ascend the professorial chair. Doubtless under Staupitz’s influence the fulfilment of those great hopes which he had formerly cherished now arose on the horizon of his mind. To continue to withstand Staupitz in the matter of the observance could but prove a hindrance to his advance, especially as the Wittenberg community was for the most part opposed to the observance. Nothing further is, however, known with regard to this strange change of front. It was of the greatest importance for his future development, as will appear in the sequel; the history of his warfare against the Observantines, to which as yet little attention has been paid, may also be considered as a new and determining factor in his mental career.