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In the years of Luther’s development the two great intellectual forces of the Middle Ages, Scholasticism and Mysticism, no longer exercised quite so powerful an influence as of yore, when they ruled over the world of intellect. Their influence on Luther’s views and his career was diverse. Scholasticism in its then state of decay, with its endless subtilties and disputatiousness, which, moreover, he knew only under the form of Occam’s nominalism, repelled him, to his own great loss. As a result he never acquired those elements of knowledge of true and lasting value to be found in the better schools, of which the traditions embodied the work of centuries of intellectual effort on the part of some of the world’s greatest minds. Mysticism, on the other hand, attracted him on account of his natural disposition, so full of feeling and imagination. He had been initiated into it at the monastery by the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure and Gerson, and, later, by the sermons of Tauler and the so-called German Theology. This study had been recommended him by Staupitz and also by his brother monks, especially by Johann Lang. It was, however, the more obscure and ambiguous writings and extracts from mystic works which appealed to him most, owing to his being able to read into them his own ideas.

As regards Scholasticism, his character predisposed him against it. Scholastic learning is founded on conceptual operations of reason; it aims at clear definitions, logical proofs and a systematic linking together of propositions. Luther’s mind, on the other hand, inclined more to a free treatment of the subject, one which allowed for feeling and imagination, and to such descriptions as offered a field for his eloquence. One of the chief reasons, however, for his lifelong dislike of Scholasticism was his very partial acquaintance with the same. He had, as we shall see, never studied its great representatives in the thirteenth century; he had made acquaintance only with its later exponents, viz. the Nominalists of Occam’s school, who gave the tone to his theological instructions and whose teachings were very prevalent in the schools in that day. He speaks repeatedly of William of Occam as his teacher. Of Luther’s relations to his doctrines we shall have to speak later: some of Occam’s views he opposed, others, which happened to be at variance with those of St. Thomas of Aquin, he approved. He would not have attributed to the latter and to other exponents of the better school of Scholasticism such foolish theses as he did—theses of which they never even dreamt—had he possessed any clear notion of their teaching. There can be no doubt that he also imbibed during his first years as a student at Erfurt, the spirit of antagonism against Scholasticism which Humanism with its craving for novelty displayed, an antagonism based ostensibly on disgust at the unclassic form of the former.

Already during the earliest period of his career at Wittenberg, as soon, indeed, as he began to preach and lecture, he commenced his attacks against Scholasticism.

He considers that Aristotle, on whom in the Middle Ages both theologians and philosophers had set such store, had been grossly misunderstood by most of the scholastics; all the good there is in Aristotle, he says, he has stolen from others; whatever in him is right, others must understand and make use of better than he himself.[191]

He often passes judgment on the theology of the Middle Ages from the point of view of the narrow, one-sided school of Occam, and then, with his lively imagination, he grossly exaggerates the opposition between it and St. Thomas of Aquin and the more classic schoolmen. The whole herd of theologians, he says, has been led astray by Aristotle; nor have they understood him in the least; according to him, Thomas of Aquin—the Doctor whom the Church has so greatly honoured and placed at the head of all theologians—did not expound a single chapter of Aristotle aright; “all the Thomists together” have not understood one chapter. Aristotle has only led them all to lay too much stress upon the importance and merit of human effort and human works to the disadvantage of God’s grace. Here lay Aristotle’s chief crime discovered by Luther, thanks to his own new theology.[192]

In his lectures on the Psalms Luther already tells his hearers that the bold loquacity of theology was due to Aristotle;[193] he makes highly exaggerated remarks regarding the disputes between the Scotists and Occam and between Occam and Scotus.[194] Peter Lombard, no less than Scotus and St. Thomas, comes in for some harsh criticism. But Luther ever reverts to Aristotle. He wishes, so he writes to his friend Lang in February, 1516, to tear off “the Greek mask which this comedian has assumed to pass himself off in the Church as a philosopher; his shame should be laid bare to all.”[195]

Such audacious language had probably never before been used against the greatest minds in the history of human thought by a theological professor, who himself had as yet given no proof whatever of his capacity.

His attacks on Scholasticism and the philosophical and theological schools up to that day, were soon employed to cover his attacks on dogma and the laws of the Church. In 1518 he places Scholasticism and Canon Law on the same footing, both needing reform.[196]

The learned Martin Pollich, who was teaching law at the University of Wittenberg, looked at the young assailant with forebodings as to the future. He frequently said that this monk would overthrow the teaching which yet prevailed at all the universities. “This brother has deep-set eyes,” he once remarked, “he must have strange fancies.”[197] His strange eyes, with their pensive gleam, ever ready to smile on a friend, and, in fact, his whole presence, made an impression upon all who were brought into close contact with him. It is an undoubted fact, true even of his later days, that intercourse with him was pleasant, especially to those whom he honoured with his friendship or whom he wished to influence. Not only were his pupils at Wittenberg devoted admirers of the brave critic of the Schoolmen, but, little by little, he also gained an unquestioned authority over the other professors, the more so as there was no one at the University able or willing to take the risks of a challenge.

The psychological reaction on himself of so high a position at the University must not be under-estimated as a factor in his development. He felt himself to be a pioneer in the struggle against Scholasticism, and one called to reinstate a new theology.

His attitude to mysticism was absolutely different from that which he assumed with regard to Aristotle and Scholasticism.

Luther speaks in praise of Tauler for the first time in 1516, though he had probably become acquainted with him earlier. At about that same time a little booklet, “Theologia Deutsch,” exercised a great influence upon him.

In a letter to Lang—who was also inclined to look with favour on Tauler, the master of German mystic theology—Luther betrays how greatly he was attracted by this writer. In his sonorous, expansive language, he speaks of him as a teacher whose enlightenment was such, that, though utterly unknown in the theological schools, he contains more real theology than all the scholastic theologians of all the universities put together. He also repeatedly assured his hearers that Tauler’s book of sermons had “led him to the spirit.”[198]

At that time Luther showed great preference for the exhortations of the German mystics on self-abasement, apathy and abnegation of self. “Theologia Deutsch,” that little work of an unknown Frankfort priest of the fourteenth century, which he came across in a MS., so fascinated him that, adding to it a preface and his own name, “Martinus Luder,” he published it in 1516 at Wittenberg. It was the first occasion of his making use of the press; this first edition was, however, incomplete, owing to the state of the MS.; the work was finally reissued complete and under the title which Luther himself had selected, viz. “A German Theologia,” in 1518. In the sub-title of the first edition he had called it a “noble spiritual booklet,” and in the preface had praised it, saying that it did not float like foam on the top of the water, but that it had been brought up from the bottom of the Jordan by a true Israelite.[199] In the first edition he had erroneously attributed the booklet to Tauler; in the second he says it is equal in merit to Tauler’s own writings. Yet, to tell the truth, it is far from reaching Tauler’s high standard of thought. Luther, however, assures us that, next to the Bible and St. Augustine, he can mention no book from which he has learned more of the nature of God, Christ, man and all other things, than from this work. When he forwarded a printed copy of the first edition to Spalatin (December 14, 1516), he wrote, that Tauler offered a solid theology which was quite similar to the old; that he was acquainted with no theology more wholesome and evangelical. Spalatin should saturate himself with Tauler’s sermons; “taste and see how sweet the Lord is, after you have first tasted and seen how bitter is everything that is ourselves.”[200]

In addition to the authors mentioned, the mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and of Gerard Groot, the founder of the Community of the Brethren of the Common Life, were known to him. That he was, or had been, fond of reading the writings of St. Bernard, we may guess from his many—often misunderstood—quotations from the same.

Luther was also well able, whilst under the influence of that inwardness which he loved so much in the mystics, to make his own their truly devotional and often moving language.

In a friendly letter he comforts, as follows, an Augustinian at Erfurt, Georg Leiffer, regarding his spiritual troubles: “The Cross of Christ is distributed throughout the whole world and each one gets a small piece of it. Do not throw yours away, but lay it, like a sacred relic, in a golden shrine, i.e. in a heart filled with gentle charity. For even the wrongs which we suffer from men, persecutions, passion and hatred, which are caused us either by the wicked or by those who mean well, are priceless relics, which have not indeed, like the wood of the cross, been hallowed by contact with our Lord’s body, but which have been blessed by His most loving heart, encompassed by His friendly, Divine Will, kissed and sanctified. The curse becomes a blessing, insult becomes righteousness, suffering becomes an aureole, and the cross a joy. Farewell, sweet father and brother, and pray for me.”