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Since the spring 1511, Luther had been qualifying, by diligent study in his cell in the great Augustinian monastery at Wittenberg, to take his degree of Doctor in Divinity in the University of that city.

In his later statements he says that he had small hopes of success in his new career on account of his weak health; that he had in vain opposed Staupitz’s invitation to take his doctorate, and that he had been compelled by obedience to comply with his Superior’s orders. After passing brilliantly the requisite tests, the University bestowed upon him the theological degree on October 1, 1512. Luther at once commenced his lectures on Holy Scripture, the subject of this, his first course, being the Psalms (1513-16). His audience consisted mainly of young Augustinians, to whom a correct understanding of the Psalms was a practical need for their services in choir.

He displayed already in these early lectures, no less than in those of the later period, the whole force of his fancy and eloquence, his great ability in the choice of quotations from the Bible, his extraordinary subjectivity, and, however out of place in such a quarter, the vehemence of his passion; in our own day the sustained rhetorical tone of his lectures would scarcely appeal to the hearer.

The fiery and stimulating teacher was in his true element at Wittenberg. The animation that pervaded students and teachers, the distinction which he enjoyed amongst his friends, his unlimited influence over the numerous young men gathered there, more especially over the students of his own Order, no less than the favour of the Elector of Saxony for the University, the Order, and, subsequently, for his own person, all this, in spite of his alleged unwillingness to embrace the profession, made his stay at Wittenberg, and his work there, very agreeable to him. He himself admits that his Superiors had done well in placing him there. Wittenberg became in the sequel the citadel of his teaching. There he remained until the evening of his days as Professor of Holy Scripture, and quitted the town only when forced by urgent reasons to do so.

As with all men of great gifts, who make a deep impression on their day, but are, all the same, children of their time, so was it with Luther. In his case, however, the influence from without was all the deeper because his lively and receptive temperament lent itself to a stronger external stimulus, and also because the position of so young a man in a professorial chair in the very heart of Germany did much to foster such influences.

Martin Pollich of Mellerstadt, formerly Professor at Leipzig, a physician, a jurist and a man of humanistic tendencies who had helped Staupitz to organise the new University, enjoyed a great reputation in the Wittenberg schools. Alongside him were the theologians Amsdorf, Carlstadt, Link, Lang and Staupitz. Nicholas von Amsdorf, who was subsequently said to be “more Luther than Luther himself,” had been since 1511 licentiate of theology, and had at the same time filled, as a secular priest, the office of Canon at the Castle Church. Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt, usually known as Carlstadt, occupied a position amongst the Augustinians engaged in teaching. He had taken his degree at Wittenberg in 1510, and was at the outset a zealous representative of Scholasticism, though he speedily attached himself to Luther’s new teaching. He was the first to proclaim the solubility of religious vows. Wenceslaus Link worked at the University from 1509 to about 1516, eventually succeeding Staupitz as Augustinian Vicar-General, and, later, by his marriage in 1523, gave the last Augustinians of the unfortunate Congregation the signal for forsaking the Order. Another Augustinian, Johann Lang, who had been Luther’s friend since the days of his first studies at Erfurt, had come to Wittenberg about 1512 as teacher at the “Studium” of the Order, though he soon left it to return to Erfurt. Johann Staupitz, the Superior of the Congregation, resigned in 1512 his Professorship of Holy Scripture at Wittenberg, being unable to attend to it sufficiently owing to his frequent absence, and made over the post to Luther, whom, as he says in his eulogistic speech to the Elector of Saxony, he had been at pains to form into a “very special Doctor of Holy Scripture.”

The teaching in the University at that time was, of course, from the religious standpoint, Catholic. Its scholarship was, however, infected with the humanistic views of the Italian naturalism, and this new school had already stamped some of the professors with its freethinking spirit.[82]

The influence of Humanism on Luther’s development must be admitted, though it is frequently overrated, the subsequent open alliance of the German Humanists with the new gospel being set back, without due cause, to Luther’s early days. As a student he had plunged into the study of the ancient classics which he loved, but there was a great difference between this and the being in complete intellectual communion with the later Humanists, whose aims were in many respects opposed to the Church’s. Thanks to the practical turn of his mind, the study of the classics, which he occasionally continued later, never engaged his attention or fascinated him to the extent it did certain Humanists of the Renaissance, who saw in the revival of classic Paganism the salvation of mankind. As a young professor at the University he was not, however, able to escape entirely the influence of the liberalism of the age, with its one-sided and ill-considered opposition to so many of the older elements of culture, an opposition which might easily prove as detrimental as a blind and biassed defence of the older order.

It is not necessary to demonstrate here how dangerous a spirit of change and libertinism was being imported in the books of the Italian Humanists, or by the German students who had attended their lectures.

With regard to Luther personally, we know that he not only had some connection with Mutian, the leader of a movement which at that time was still chiefly literary, but also that Johann Lang at once forwarded to Mutian a lecture against the morals of the “little Saints” of his Order delivered by Luther at Gotha in 1515.[83] Luther also excused himself in a very respectful letter to this leader of the Humanists for not having called on him when passing through Gotha in 1516.[84] Luther’s most intimate friend, Lang, through whom he seems to have entered into a certain exchange of ideas with Humanism, was an enthusiastic Humanist and possessed of great literary connections. Lang, for his part, speaks highly to Mutian of the assistance rendered him in his studies by Luther.[85] There can therefore be no doubt that Luther was no stranger to the efforts of the Humanists, to their bold and incisive criticism of the traditional methods, to their new idealism and their spirit of independence. Many of the ideas which filled the air in those days had doubtless an attraction for and exerted an influence on the open-hearted, receptive disposition of the talented monk.

Luther’s friendship with Spalatin, which dated from his Erfurt days, must also be taken into account in this regard. For Spalatin, who came as tutor and preacher in 1508 to the Court of the Elector of Saxony, was very closely allied in spirit with the Humanists of Erfurt and Gotha. It was he who asked Luther for his opinion respecting the famous dispute of the Cologne Faculty with the Humanist Reuchlin, a quarrel which engaged the sympathy of scholars and men of education throughout the length and breadth of Germany. Luther, in his reply, which dates from January or February, 1514, had at that time no hesitation in emphatically taking the side of Reuchlin, who, he declared, possessed his love and esteem. God, he says, would carry on His work in spite of the determined opposition of one thousand times one thousand Cologne burghers, and he adds meaningly that there were much more important matters with the Church which needed reform; they were “straining at gnats and swallowing camels.”[86] The conservative attitude of the authorities at Cologne was at that time not at all to his taste. Not long after Luther writes very strongly to Spalatin, again in favour of Reuchlin, against Ortwin de Graes of Cologne, and says among other things that he had hitherto thought the latter an ass, but that he must now call him a dog, a wolf and a crocodile, in spite of his wanting to play the lion,[87] expressions which are quite characteristic of Luther’s style.

On the appearance of the “Letters of Obscure Men,” and a similar satirical writing which followed them, and which also found its way into Luther’s hands, the young Wittenberg professor, instead of taking the field against the evil tendency of these attacks of the Humanist party on the “bigots of Scholasticism and the cloister” as such diatribes deserved, and as he in his character of monk and theologian should have done, sought to take a middle course: he approved of the purpose of the attacks, but not of the satire itself, which mended nothing and contained too much invective. Both productions, he says, must have come out of the same pot; they had as their author, if not the same, at least a very similar comedian. It is now known that the real author of the letters which caused such an uproar was his former University friend, Crotus Rubeanus.[88]

On what terms did Luther stand with respect to Erasmus, the leader of the Humanists, before their great and final estrangement? As he speaks of Erasmus in a letter of 1517 to Lang as “our Erasmus,” we may infer that until then he was, to a certain extent, favourably disposed towards him. He rejoiced on reading his humanistic writings to find that “he belaboured the monks and clergy so manfully and so learnedly and had torn the veil off their out-of-date rubbish.”[89] Yet, on the same occasion, he confesses that his liking for Erasmus is becoming weaker. It was not the attitude of Erasmus to the Church in general which even then separated Luther from him, but his new teaching on Grace, the origin of which will be treated of later. It is true Luther conveyed to him through Spalatin his good wishes for his renown and progress, but in the same message he admonished him not to follow the example of nearly every commentator in interpreting certain passages where Paul condemns “righteousness by works” as referring only to the Mosaic ceremonial law, and not rather to all the works of the Decalogue. If such are performed “outside the Faith in Christ,” then though they should make of a man a Fabricius, a Regulus, or a paragon of perfection, yet they have as little in common with righteousness as blackberries have with figs”; it is not the works which justify a man, but rather our righteousness which sanctifies the works. Abel was more pleasing to God than his works.[90] The exclusive sense in which Luther interprets these words, according to which he does not even admit that works of righteousness are of any value for the increase of righteousness, is a consequence of his new standpoint, to which he is anxious to convert Erasmus and all the Humanists.

He had the Humanists in his mind when he wrote as follows to Johann Lang: “The times are perilous, and a man may be a great Greek, or Hebrew [scholar] without being a wise Christian.... He who makes concessions to human freewill judges differently from him who knows nothing save Grace alone.”[91] But this is to forestall a development of his error, which will be described later. At the time that his new doctrine originated he was far more in sympathy with the theories of certain groups of late mediæval mystics than with the views of the Humanists, because, as will appear later, he found in them the expression of that annihilation of the human by means of Grace, of which the idea was floating before his mind, and because he also discovered in them an “inwardness” which agreed with his own feelings at that time.

From Erasmus and his compeers he undoubtedly borrowed, in addition to a spirit of justifiable criticism, an exaggerated sentiment of independence towards ecclesiastical antiquity. The contact with their humanistic views assuredly strengthened in him the modern tendency to individualism. Not long after a change in the nature of his friendship necessarily took place. His antagonism to Erasmus in the matter of his doctrine of Grace led to a bitter dispute between the two, to which Luther’s contribution was his work on “The Servitude of the Will” (De servo arbitrio); at the same time his alliance with the Humanists remained of value to him in the subversive movement which he had inaugurated.

Mighty indeed were the forces, heralds of a spiritual upheaval, which, since the fifteenth century, had streamed through the Western world in closer or more distant connection with the great revival of the study of classical antiquity. They proclaimed the advent of a new cycle in the history of mankind. This excited world could not fail to impart its impulse to the youthful Luther.

The recently discovered art of printing had, as it were at one blow, created a world-wide community of intellectual productions and literary ideas such as the Middle Ages had never dreamed of. The nations were drawn closer together at that period by the interchange of the most varied and far-reaching discoveries. The spirit of worldly enterprise awoke as from a long slumber as a result of the astonishing discovery of great and wealthy countries overseas.

With the greater facilities for intellectual intercourse and the increase of means of study, criticism set to work on all branches of learning with greater results than ever before. The greater States now did what they had been willing but unable to do before; they freed themselves more and more from the former tutelage of the Church; they aimed at securing freedom and shaking off that priestly influence to which, in part at least, they owed their stability and their growth; nor was this movement confined to the greater States, for, in Germany, at any rate, the wealthy cities, the great landed proprietors and princes were all alike intent on ridding themselves of the oppression under which they had hitherto laboured and on securing for themselves an increase of power. In brief, everywhere the old restraints were breaking down, everywhere a forward movement of individualism was in progress at the expense of the commonweal and the traditional order of the Middle Ages; but, above all, at the expense of the Church’s religious authority, which, alone till then, had kept individualism in check to the profit of humanity.

It would indeed have been well had at least the Catholic Church at that critical period been free from weakness and abuse. Her Divine power of blessing the nations, it is true, still survived, her preaching of the truth, her treasure of the Sacraments, in short, her soul, was unchanged; but, because she was suffering from many lamentable imperfections, the disruptive forces were able to come into play with fatal results. The complaints of eloquent men full of zeal for souls, both at that time and during the preceding decades, particularly in Germany, over the decline of religious life among the Faithful and the corruption in the clergy, were only too well founded, and deserved to have met with a much more effectual reception than they did. What the monk of Wittenberg, with unbridled passion and glaring exaggeration, was about to thunder forth over the world in his mighty call for reform, had already for the most part been urged by others, yea, by great Saints of the Church who attacked the abuses with the high-minded zeal of ripe experience. Strict, earnest and experienced men had set to work on a Catholic reform in many parts of the Church, not excepting Germany, in the only profitable way, viz. not by doctrinal innovation, but by raising the standard of morality among both people and clergy. But progress was slow, very slow, for reasons which cannot be dealt with here. The life-work of the pious founder of his own Congregation might well have served Luther as an admirable example of moral regeneration and efficiency; for the aim of Andreas Proles was, as a Protestant writer remarks: “A strong and mighty Reformation”; he lived in hopes that God would shortly raise up a hero capable of bringing it about with strength and determination, though the Reformation he had in his mind, as our historian allows, could only have been a Reformation in the Catholic sense.[92] Another attractive example of reforming zeal was also given under Luther’s very eyes by the Windesheim Congregation of the Brethren of the Common Life, with whom he had been in friendly intercourse from his boyish days.

The disorders in Germany had an all too powerful stronghold in the higher ranks of ecclesiastical authority. Not until after the Council of Trent did it become apparent how much the breaking down of this bulwark of corruption would cost. The bishops were for the most part incapable or worldly. Abbots, provosts, wealthy canons and dignitaries vied with and even excelled the episcopate in their neglect of the duties of their clerical state. In the filling of Church offices worldly influence was paramount, and in its wake followed forced nominations, selfishness, incompetence and a general retrograde movement; the moral disorders among the clergy and the people accumulated under lazy and incompetent superiors. The system of indulgences, pilgrimages, sodalities and numerous practices connected with the veneration of the Saints, as well as many other details of worship, showed lamentable excesses.

Of the above-mentioned evils within the German Church, two will be examined more closely: the interference of the Government and the worldly-minded nobility in Church matters, and the evil ways of the higher and lower grades of the clergy.

Not merely were the clerical dues frequently seized by the princes and lesser authorities, but positions in the Cathedral chapters and episcopal sees were, in many cases, handed over arbitrarily to members of the nobility or ruling houses, so that in many places the most important posts were held by men without a vocation and utterly unworthy of the office. “When the ecclesiastical storm broke out at the end of the second decade of the sixteenth century the following archbishoprics and bishoprics were filled by the sons of princes: Bremen, Freising, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Magdeburg, Mayence, Merseburg, Metz, Minden, Münster, Naumburg, Osnabrück, Paderborn, Passau, Ratisbon, Spires, Verden and Verdun.”[93] The bishops drawn from the princely houses were, as a rule, involved in worldly business or in Court intrigues, even where, as was the case, for instance, with the powerful Archbishop of Mayence, Albrecht of Brandenburg, their early education had not been entirely anti-ecclesiastical.

Another evil was the uniting of several important bishoprics in the hands of one individual. “The Archbishop of Bremen was at the same time Bishop of Verden, the Bishop of Osnabrück also Bishop of Paderborn, the Archbishop of Mayence also Archbishop of Magdeburg and Bishop of Halberstadt. George, Palsgrave of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria, had already in his thirteenth year been made Cathedral Provost of Mayence and afterwards became a Canon of Cologne and Treves, Provost of St. Donatian’s at Bruges, patron of the livings of Hochheim and Lorch on the Rhine and finally, in 1513, Bishop of Spires. By special privilege of Pope Leo X, granted June 22, 1513, he, an otherwise earnest and pious man, was permitted to hold all these benefices in addition to his bishopric of Spires.”[94] A contemporary, reviewing the condition of the worldly-minded bishops, complains “that the higher clergy are chiefly to blame for the careless way in which the cure of souls is exercised. They place unsuitable shepherds over the people, while they themselves draw the tithes. Many seek to unite in their grasp the greatest possible number of livings without fulfilling the duties they entail and waste the revenues of the Church in luxury, on servants, pages, dogs and horses. One seeks to outvie the other in ostentation and luxury.”[95] One of the most important explanations of the fact, that, at the very outset of the religious innovation, the falling away from the Church took place with such astonishing celerity, is to be found in the corruption and apathy of the episcopate.[96]

Bertold Pirstinger, Bishop of Chiemsee and author of the lament “Onus ecclesiæ,” wrote sadly in 1519: “Where does the choice fall upon a good, capable and learned bishop, where on one who is not inexperienced, sensual and ignorant of spiritual things?... I know of some bishops who prefer to wear a sword and armour rather than their clerical garb. It has come to this, that the episcopate is now given up to worldly possessions, sordid cares, stormy wars, worldly sovereignty.... The prescribed provincial and diocesan synods are not held. Hence many Church matters which ought to be reformed are neglected. Besides this, the bishops do not visit their parishes at fixed times, and yet they exact from them heavy taxes. Thus the lives of the clergy and laity have sunk to a low level and the churches are unadorned and falling to pieces.” The zealous bishop closes his gloomy description, in which perhaps he is too inclined to generalise, with a touching prayer to God for a true reformation from within: “Therefore grant that the Church may be reformed, which has been redeemed by Thy Blood and is now, through our fault, near to destruction.”[97] He considers, however, that a reform of the Church undertaken from within and preserving her faith and institutions is what is needed. The deterioration was in his eyes, and in those of the best men of the day, undoubtedly very great, but not irreparable.

A glance at the work of many excellent men, such as Trithemius, Wimpfeling, Geiler of Kaysersberg and others, may serve as a warning against an excessive generalisation with regard to the deterioration in the ranks of the higher and lower clergy. Weaknesses, disorders and morbid growths are far more apparent to the eyes of contemporaries than goodness, which usually fails to attract attention. Even Johann Nider, the Dominican, who, as a rule, is unsparing in lashing the weaknesses of the clergy of his day, is compelled to speak a word of warning: “Take heed never to pass a universal judgment when speaking only of many, otherwise you will never, or hardly ever, escape passing an unjust one.”[98]

That there was, however, the most pressing need of a reform in the lives of both higher and lower clergy is proved by a glance at the state of the priesthood. The position of the lower clergy, in comparison with that of their betters “who rolled in riches and luxury,” was one not in keeping with the dignity of their state. “Apart from the often very precarious tithes and stole-fees they had no stipend, so that their poverty, and sometimes also their avarice, obliged them to turn to other means of livelihood, which ... necessarily exposed them to the contempt of the people. There can be no doubt that ‘a very large portion of the lower clergy had fallen so far from the ideal of their calling, that one may speak of the priestly proletariat of that day, using the word in both its ordinary and its literal sense.’ This clerical proletariat was ready to join any movement which promised to promote its own low aims.”[99]

The number of clergy, largely owing to the excessive multiplication of small foundations without any cure of souls, had increased to such an extent that among so many there must necessarily have been a very large number who had no real vocation, while their lack of employment must have spelt a real danger to their morals. Attached to two churches at Breslau at the end of the fifteenth century were 236 clerics, all of them mere Mass-priests, i.e. ordained simply to say Mass in the chantry chapels founded with very small endowments. Besides the daily celebration, these Mass-priests had as their only obligation the recital of the Breviary. In the Cathedral at Meissen there were, in 1480, besides 14 canons, 14 Mass-priests and 60 curates. In Strasburg the Cathedral foundation comprised 36 canonries, that of St. Thomas 20, Old St. Peter’s 17, New St. Peter’s 15 and All Saints’ 12. In addition to these were also numerous deputies who were prepared to officiate at High Mass in place of the actual beneficiaries. Of such deputies there were no fewer than 63 attached to the Cathedral, where there were also 38 chaplaincies. In Cologne Johann Agricola gives the number of “priests and monks” (though he adds “so it is said”) as 5000; on another occasion he estimates the number of monks and nuns only, at 5000. What is certain is that the “German Rome” on the Rhine numbered at that time 11 collegiate foundations, 19 parish churches, over 100 chapels, 22 monasteries, 12 hospitals and 76 religious houses.[100]

The above-mentioned Bishop of Chiemsee attributes the corruption of the priesthood principally to the misuse by clergy and laity of their right of patronage both in nominations and by arbitrary interference. Geiler of Kaysersberg is of the same opinion; he attributes to the laity, more particularly to the patrons among the nobility, the sad condition of the parishes. Uneducated, bad, immoral men were now presented, he says, not the good and virtuous.[101] Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, who did so much service to Germany, had declared quite openly the cause of the deformation of the clerical system to be the admission to Holy Orders of unworthy candidates, the concubinage of the clergy, plurality of benefices, and simony. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the complaints increased, more especially with regard to the immorality of the clergy. “The numerous regulations of bishops and synods leave no doubt about the fact that a large portion of the German clergy transgressed the law of celibacy in the most flagrant manner.”[102] A statement which was presented to the Dukes of Bavaria in 1477 declared that in the opinion of many friends and advocates of a healthy reform, an improvement in the morals of the clergy, where the real cause of all the Church’s evils lay, must be taken in hand. It is true there were districts where a blameless and praiseworthy clergy worked, as, for example, the Rhine-Lands, Schleswig-Holstein and the Algäu. On the other hand, in Saxony, Luther’s home, and in Franconia and Bavaria great disorders were reported in this respect. The “De ruina ecclesiæ,” an earlier work, attributed to Nicholas of Clémanges, tells us of bishops in the commencement of the fifteenth century who, in consideration of a money payment, permitted concubinage to their clergy, and Hefele’s “History of the Councils” gives numerous synodical decrees of that date forbidding the bishops to accept money or presents in return for permitting or conniving at concubinage.[103]

Along with concubinage many of the higher clergy displayed a luxury and a spirit of haughty pride which repelled the people, especially the more independent burghers. Members of the less fortunate clergy gave themselves up to striving after gain by pressing for their tithes and fees and rents, a tendency which was encouraged both in high and low by the excessive demands made by Rome. Worthless so-called courtisans, i.e. clerks furnished with briefs from the Papal Court (corte), seized upon the best benefices and gave an infectious example of greed, while at the same time their action helped to add fuel to the prejudice and hatred already existing for the Curia.[104]

Innumerable were the causes of friction in the domain of worldly interests which gave rise to strife and enmity between laity and clergy. Laymen saw with displeasure how the most influential and laborious posts were filled, not by the beneficiaries themselves, but by incapable representatives, while the actual incumbents resided elsewhere in comfortable ease and leisure at the expense of the old foundations endowed by the laity. On the other hand, the churches and monasteries complained of the rights appropriated or misused by the princes and nobility, an abuse which often led to the monasteries serving as homes for worn-out officials, or to the vexatious seizure and retention of the estates of deceased priests or abbots. It is clear that such a self-seeking policy on the part of the powerful naturally resulted in the most serious evils and abuses in Church matters, quite apart from the bad feeling thus aroused between the clerical and lay elements of the State.

The richer monasteries in particular had to submit to becoming the preserves of the nobles, who made it their practice to provide in this way for the younger scions of their family, and for that reason sought to prevent members of the middle classes being admitted to profession. The efforts to reform lax monasteries, which are often met with about the close of the Middle Ages, were frequently stifled by these and similar worldly influences.

In the disintegration of ecclesiastical order, the power and influence of the rulers of the land with regard to Church matters was, as might be expected, constantly on the increase.

Many German princes, influenced by the ideas with regard to the dignity of the State which came into such vogue in the fifteenth century, and dissatisfied with the concessions already made to them by the Church, arrogated still further privileges, for example, the taxation of Church lands, the restriction of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the so-called Government Placet and an oppressive right of visiting and supervising the parishes within their territories. There had thus grown up in many districts a system of secular interference in Church matters long before the religious apostasy of the sixteenth century resulted in the total submission of the Church to the Protestant princes of the land. The Catholic ruler recognised in principle the doctrines and rights of the Church. What, however, was to happen if rulers, equipped with such twofold authority, altered their attitude to the Church on the outbreak of the schism? Their fidelity was in many cases already put to a severe test by the disorders of the clergy, which were doing harm to their country and which Rome made no attempt to suppress. The ecclesiastico-political complaints of the princes (the famous Gravamina) against Rome are proofs of their annoyance; for these charges, as Dr. Eck pointed out, were for the most part well founded; Eck’s opinion was shared by other authorities, such as Bertold von Henneberg, Wimpfeling, Duke George of Saxony, and Aleander the Papal Nuncio, who all express themselves in the same manner regarding the financial grievances against Rome, which were felt in Germany throughout all ranks and classes down to the meanest individual.[105]

“On account of these and other causes the irritation and opposition to the Holy See had, on the eve of the great German schism, reached boiling point; this vexation is explained, as the ’Gravamina nationis Germanicæ’ clearly prove, by the disorders of the Curia, and still more by its unceasing demands.” “That the smouldering discontent broke into open flame was the doing of those scoffers without faith or conscience, such as the Humanists, who persisted in pouring on the fire the oil of their sophistries.”[106] The Catholic historian from whom these words are borrowed rightly draws attention to the “mistaken policy” entered on by Luther’s followers when they attacked the hierarchical order on account of the disorders rampant in the life and administration of the Church. The success of their “mistaken policy” was a “speaking proof of the coarseness, blindness and passion of the German people at that time,” but in its practical results their policy helped to bring about an ever-to-be-regretted alteration and to open a yawning chasm which still exists to-day. “That the vexation was not altogether without cause no honest historian can deny, whatever his enthusiasm for the Catholic Church,” for “the action of Churchmen, whether belonging to the hierarchy or to the regular or secular clergy, cannot be misunderstood. Throughout the whole of Christendom, and particularly in Germany, the general state of things was deplorable.... Even though the evils of the waning Middle Ages may have been, and still continue to be, grossly exaggerated by Protestants, and though in the fifteenth century we see many cheering examples and some partially successful attempts at reform, yet there still remains enough foulness to account psychologically for the falling away.”[107]

And yet the disorders in matters ecclesiastical in Germany would not have entailed the sad consequences they did had they not been accompanied by a great number of social evils, especially the intense discontent of the lower classes with their position and a hostile jealousy of the laity against the privileges and possessions of the clergy. Savage outbreaks of rebellion against the old traditional order of things were of frequent occurrence. In many localities the peasants were in arms against their princes and masters for the improvement of their conditions; the knights and the nobility, to say nothing of the cities, gave themselves up to the spirit of aggrandisement referred to above. It was just this spirit of unrest and discontent of which the coming mighty movement of intellectual and religious reform was to avail itself.

If we look more closely at Italy and Rome we find that in Italy, which comprised within its limits the seat of the supreme authority in the Church and of which the influence on civilisation everywhere was so important, complete religious indifference had taken root among many of the most highly cultured. The Renaissance, the famed classic regeneration, had undergone a change for the worse, and, in the name of education, was promoting the most questionable tendencies. After having been welcomed and encouraged by the Papacy with over-great confidence it disappointed both the Popes and the Church with its poisonous fruits.

At the time that the Holy See was lavishing princely gifts on art and learning, the pernicious system of Church taxation so often complained of by the nations was becoming more and more firmly established. This taxation, which had started at the time of the residence of the Popes at Avignon in consequence of the real state of need in which the central government of the Church then stood, became more and more an oppressive burden, especially in Germany. It was exploited by Luther in one of his earliest controversial writings where, voicing the popular discontent in that spiteful language of which he was a master, he joined his protest to that of the German Estates of the realm. Combining truth and fancy, the administration of the Papal finances became in his hands a popular and terribly effective weapon. It has frequently been pointed out how much the authority of the Holy See suffered in the preceding age, not only on account of the Western Schism when three rival claimants simultaneously strove for the tiara, but also through the so-called reforming councils and their opposition to the constitution of the Church, through the political mistakes of the Popes since they established their headquarters in France, through the struggle they waged to assert their power in Italy, that apple of discord of rising nations, and also, in the case of the Avignon Popes, through their lack, or, at any rate, suspected lack, of independence. To this we must add the shocking behaviour of the Curial officials and of several of the cardinals in the Eternal City, especially at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, also the disgraceful example of Alexander VI and the Borgia family, the bearing of his successor Julius II, more befitting a soldier than an ecclesiastic, and the very worldly spirit of Leo X and his Court. Ostentation and the abuse of worldly possessions and Church revenues which Alvarez Pelayo, the Spanish Franciscan, had already bewailed in his “De planctu ecclesiæ” had risen to still greater heights at Rome. The work of this severe critic, who, in spite of his fault-finding, was nevertheless well disposed to the Curia, was in general circulation just previous to Luther’s appearance on the field; it was several times reprinted, for instance, at Ulm in 1474, and again at Lyons in 1517, with a dedication to the later Pope Hadrian VI. It is there we find the indignant assertion, that those who bear the dignity of the primacy are God’s worst persecutors.[108] In the work “De squaloribus Romanæ curiæ” various well-founded complaints were adduced, together with much that was incorrect and exaggerated. The book “De ruina ecclesiæ” (see above, p. 50) contained accusations against the Popes and the government of the Church couched in rude and violent language, and these too gained new and stronger significance at the end of the fifteenth and commencement of the sixteenth century. We actually read therein that the number of the righteous in the Church is diminutive compared with that of the wicked.[109]

There is no doubt that the state of things, so far as it was known from the above-mentioned books, or from observation or rumour, was busily and impatiently discussed in the company frequented by Luther at the University of Wittenberg. What Luther had himself seen at Rome must have still further contributed to increase the bitterness among his friends.

When the Monk of Wittenberg openly commenced his attacks on the Papacy, it became apparent how far the disorders just alluded to had prepared the way for his plans. It was clear that all the currents adverse to the Papacy were, so to speak, waiting for the coming of one man, who should unchain them with his powerful hand. Amongst those who hitherto had been faithful adherents of the Church, Luther found combustible material—social, moral and political—heaped up so high that a stunning result was not surprising. Had there arisen a saint like St. Bernard, on whose words the world of the Middle Ages had hung, with the Divine gift of teaching and writing as the times demanded, who can say what course events would have taken? But Luther arrived on the scene with his terrible, mighty voice, pressed all the elements of the storm into his service, and, launching a defiance of which the world had never before heard the like, succeeded in winning an immense success for the standard he had raised.[110]

Luther from the very outset of his career was too liberal in his blame of the customs and conditions in the Church which happened to meet with his disapproval.

Scarcely had he finished his course of studies as a learner than he already began to wax eloquent against various abuses. In his characteristic love of exaggeration of language he did not fear to use the sharpest epithets, nor to magnify the evil, whether in his academic lectures or in the pulpit, or in his letters and writings. He wrote, for instance, to Spalatin in 1516 to dissuade the Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, from promoting Staupitz to a bishopric: he who becomes a bishop in these days falls into the most evil of company, all the wickedness of Greece, Rome and Sodom were to be found in the bishops; Spalatin should compare the carryings-on of the present bishops with those of the bishops of Christian antiquity; now a pastor of souls was considered quite exemplary if he merely pursued his worldly business and built up for himself with his riches an insatiable hell.[111]

In his first lectures at Wittenberg he complains that “neither monasteries nor colleges, nor Cathedral churches will in any sort accept discipline.”[112] The clergy, he says, in another place, generalising after the fashion common among preachers, should be the eyes of the Church, but to-day they do not direct the body, i.e. the Faithful, for they are blinded: they are the soul, but they do not give life, but rather kill by their deadly example; about nothing do they trouble less than about souls.[113] In similar language he, in these lectures, represents the bishops and priests as simply “full of the most abominable unchastity”; according to him, they bring to the pulpit nothing but “their views and fables, nothing but masquerading and buffoonery,” so that the Church can do nothing but cry aloud over the misery in which it is sunk. “The strength of her youth has forsaken her.”[114]

One of the earliest portions of Luther’s correspondence which has been preserved and which takes us back to his little world at Wittenberg, throws a clearer light on his character at that time. It deals with an unpleasant dispute with his brother monks at Erfurt, which he became involved in owing to his having taken his doctorate at Wittenberg instead of at Erfurt. The Erfurt monastery reproached him with a serious infringement of the rules and disrespect for the Theological Faculty there; he had, they said, entered the teaching Corporation of Erfurt in virtue of the oath which he had taken in the customary manner on his appointment as Sententiarius, and was therefore under strict obligation to take his degree of Doctor in this Faculty and not elsewhere. Other unknown charges were also made against him, but were speedily withdrawn. It is highly probable that the tension between Observantines and Conventuals increased the misunderstanding.

Nathin, the Erfurt Augustinian, first wrote a rather tactless letter to Luther about it all, as it would appear in the name of the council of the monastery. Luther was extremely angry and allowed his excitement free play. He first expresses his surprise in two letters to the Prior and the council, and was about to despatch a third when he learnt that the accusations against him, with the exception of that regarding his doctorate, had been withdrawn. While Nathin’s letter and also the two passionate replies of the young Doctor have been lost, two other letters of the latter regarding the matter exist, and are professedly letters of excuse. The first is in reality nothing of the kind, but rather the opposite. In this letter, dated June 16, 1514, and addressed to the Prior and the council, Luther to begin with complains vehemently of the evil reports against his person which, according to his information, some of those he was addressing at Erfurt had circulated previously. Nathin’s letter had, however, been the last straw. “This letter,” he says, which was written in the name of all, angered him so much with its lies and its provoking, poisonous scorn, that “I had almost poured out the vials of my wrath and indignation on his head and the whole monastery, as Master Paltz did.” They had probably received the two “amazed replies”; as however the other charges had been withdrawn, he would hold the majority of those he was addressing as excused; they must now, on their part, forget any hurt they had felt at his previous replies; “Lay all that I have done,” these are his words, “to the account of the furious epistle of Master Nathin, for my anger was only too well justified. Now, however, I hear still worse things of this man, viz. that he accuses me everywhere of being a dishonourable perjurer on account of the oath to the Faculty which I am supposed to have taken and not kept.” He goes on to explain that he had been guilty of no such crime, for the Biblical lectures at the commencement of which he was supposed to have taken the oath, and at which, it is true, in accordance with the customs of the University, such an oath was generally taken, had not been begun by him at Erfurt; at his opening lecture on the Sentences in that town he had, so far as he remembers, taken no oath, nor could he recall having ever taken any oath in the Faculty at Erfurt. He closes with an expression of respect and gratitude to the Erfurt Faculty. Though he was the injured party, he was calm and contented and joyful, for he had deserved much worse of God: they too should lay their bitterness aside, “as God has clearly willed my departure (excorporatio) from Erfurt, and we must not withstand God.”[115] This letter and Luther’s previous steps cannot be regarded as giving proof of a harmoniously attuned disposition. He may have been in the right in the matter of the oath, a question of which it is difficult to judge. It was not, however, very surprising that the Erfurt monks took steps to force Luther to make more satisfactory amends to the Faculty than the strange letter of excuse given above. It is plain that under pressure of some higher authority invoked by them, a second letter, this time of more correct character, was despatched by the Wittenberg Doctor. In judging of this academic dispute, we must bear in mind the store that was set in those days on University traditions.

The second letter in question, dated December 21, 1514, is addressed to the “excellent Fathers and Gentlemen, the Dean and other Doctors of the Theological Faculty of Studies at Erfurt” and in the very first words shows itself to be a humble apology and request for pardon. It contains further information regarding the affair. He begs them at least not to deem him guilty of a fault committed knowingly and out of malice; if he had done anything unseemly, at least it was unintentionally (“extra dolum et conscientiam”); he begs them to dispense and ratify, to supply what is wanting and to remit, if not the penalty, at least the fault.[116]

We learn nothing further about the dispute. The negotiations did not lead to the renewal of the good relations with Erfurt, which had been interrupted by his brusque departure. The people of Erfurt were amongst the first to object to the new, so-called Augustinism and Paulinism of the Wittenberg Professor.