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Before continuing in a more systematic form the examination of the origin of Luther’s new theology, of which we have just seen some of the antecedents, we must cast a glance at the erroneous theological result which Luther had already reached in 1515-16, and which must be considered as the goal of his actual development.

Several of the above passages, from sermons and letters of the years 1515-16, have already in part betrayed the result. It appears, however, in full in the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans delivered between the autumn, 1515, and the summer, 1516, already several times referred to.[207] Everyone who has followed the course of Luther research during the last decade will recall the commotion aroused when Denifle announced the discovery in the Vatican Library of a copy hitherto unknown of Luther’s youthful work (Palat. 1826). Much labour has since been expended in connection with the numerous passages quoted from it by this scholar. A popular Protestant history of dogma even attempted to arrange Denifle’s quotations so as to form with them a complete picture.[208] Meanwhile a complete edition of the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans has been brought out by Johann Ficker which will serve as the foundation for a proper treatment of the new material. It may, however, be of interest, and serve to recall the literary movement of the last few years, if we here sum up Luther’s errors of 1516 according to the extracts from the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans adduced by Denifle. The present writer, on the ground of his study of the Vatican copy undertaken previous to the appearance of Ficker’s edition, can assure the reader that the extracts really give the kernel of the lectures. Some additions which he then noted as elucidating Denifle’s excerpts are given in the notes according to the MS. and alongside of the quotations from Denifle; everywhere, however, Ficker’s new edition has also been quoted, reference being made to the scholia, or to the glosses, on the Epistle to the Romans, according as the passages are taken from the one or the other part of Luther’s Commentary.

The Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans really represents the first taking shape of Luther’s heretical views. From the very beginning he expresses some of them without concealment. It is clear that during his preparation for these lectures in the summer and early autumn of 1515 things within him had reached a climax, and, overcoming all scruples, he determined to take the decisive step of laying the result of his new and quite peculiar views before his audience at the University. At the very commencement his confident theses declare that the commentator will deduce everything from Paul, and as we proceed we see more and more clearly how his immersion in his mistaken interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans—that deep well of apostolic teaching—led him to propound the false doctrines born of his earlier antipathy for Scholasticism and liking for pseudo-mysticism.

In the very first pages Luther endeavours to show how imputed righteousness is the principal doctrine advocated by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. Justification by faith alone and the new appreciation of works is expressed quite openly.

“God has willed to save us,” this he represents as the sum total of the Epistle, “not by our own but by extraneous righteousness and wisdom, not by such as is in us or produced by our inner self, but by that which comes to us from elsewhere.” “We must rest altogether on an extraneous and foreign righteousness,” he repeats, “and therefore destroy our own, i.e. our homely righteousness” (“non per domesticam sed per extraneam iustitiam,” etc.).[209] So fascinated is he by the terrifying picture of self-righteousness and holiness by works, that he is more than inclined to weaken the inclination for good works, though he indeed declares them necessary: according to him they produce in man a self-consciousness which prevents him regarding himself as unrighteous and as needing the justification of Christ. The truly righteous, such are his actual words, always believe “that they are sinners ... they sigh until they are completely cured of concupiscence, a release which takes place at death.” Everyone must be distrustful even of his good intentions, he tells his adversaries, i.e. “those who trust in themselves, who, thinking they are in possession of God’s grace, cease to prove themselves, and sink daily into greater lukewarmness.” He asks ironically whether “they acted from the pure love of God,” for now, erroneously, he will allow only the purest love of God as a motive.[210] He writes: “he who thinks, that the greater his works, the more sure he is of salvation shows himself to be an unbeliever, a proud man and a contemner of the word. It does not depend at all on the multitude of works [in the right sense this was admitted by the old theologians]; it is nothing but temptation to pay any attention to this.” It is mere “wisdom of the flesh,” he thinks, for anyone to pay attention to the “difference of works” rather than to the word, particularly the inward word and its impulses.[211]

Here in his mystical language he states the following paradoxical thesis: “the wisdom of the spiritually minded knows neither good nor evil (“prudentia spiritualium neque bonum neque malum scit”); it keeps its eyes fixed always on the word, not on the work.”[212] He concludes: “let us only close our eyes, listen in simplicity to the word, and do what it commands whether it be foolish or evil or great or small” (“sive stultum sive malum, sive magnum sive parvum præcipiat, hoc faciamus”).[213] As righteousness does not proceed from works we must so much the more cling to imputation. “Our works are nothing, we find in ourselves nothing but thoughts which accuse us ... where shall we find defenders? Nowhere but in Christ ... the heart, it is true, reproves a man for his evil works, it accuses him and witnesses against him. But he who believes in Christ turns at once [from himself] to Christ and says: He has done enough, He is righteous, He is my defence, He died for me, He has made His righteousness mine and my sin His. But if He has made my sin His, then it is no longer mine and I am free. If He has made His righteousness mine, then I am righteous through the same righteousness as He.”[214]

Here then the sinner, as Luther teaches in his letter to Spenlein (see above, p. 88 ff.), simply casts himself upon Christ and hides himself just as he is “under the wings of the hen” (p. 80), comforting himself with the doctrine of imputation. The old Church, on the contrary, not only pointed to the merits of Christ (see above, pp. 10, 18) but also to the exhortations of St. Paul where he calls for zealous, active co-operation with the Divine grace, for inward conversion in the spirit, for works of penance and for purification from sin by contrition in order that our reconciliation with God and real pardon may become possible. Hence, while the Catholic doctrine conceives of justification as an interior, organic process, Luther is beginning to take it as something exterior and mechanical, as a process which results from the pushing forward of a foreign righteousness, as if it were a curtain. He turns away from the Catholic doctrine according to which a man justified by a living and active faith is really incorporated in Christ as the shoot is grafted into the olive tree, or the branch on the vine, i.e. to a new life, to an interior ennobling through sanctifying grace and the infused supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity.

Nevertheless Luther himself was affrighted at the theory of faith alone, and imputation. He feared lest he should be reproached with setting good works aside with his doctrine of imputed merit. He therefore explains in self-defence that he did not desire a bare faith; “the hypocrites and the lawyers” thought they would be saved by such a faith, but according to Paul’s words a faith was requisite by which we “approach Christ” (“per quem habemus accessum per fidem,” Rom. v. 2). Those are therefore in error who go forward in Christ with over-great certainty, but not by faith; as though they would be saved by Christ, for not doing anything themselves and giving no sign of faith. These possess too much faith, or, better still, none at all. Both must exist: “by faith” and “by Christ”; we must do and suffer gladly all that we can in the faith of Christ, and yet account ourselves in all things unprofitable servants, and only through Christ alone think ourselves able to go to God. For the object of works of faith is to make us worthy of Christ and of the refuge and protection of His righteousness.”[215] With this is connected Luther’s insistence on the necessity of invoking God’s grace in order that we may be able to fight against our passions and to bring forth good works, and in order that the passions, which in themselves are sin, may not be imputed by God.[216] Thus can “the body of sin be destroyed” and the “old man overcome.”[217] Luther admits, though with hesitation and in contradiction with himself, works which prepare us for justification.[218]

In spite of everything, in this first stage of his development, justification appears to him uncertain. He declares in so many words: “We cannot know whether we are justified and whether we believe”; and he can only add rather lamely: “we must look upon our works as works of the Law and be, in humility, sinners, hoping only to be justified through the mercy of Christ.”[219] He has no “joyful assurance of salvation”—which, in fact, had no place whatever in the new teaching as expounded by Luther himself—and its name is always drowned by the loud cry of sin. Even saints, on account of the sin which still clings to them, do not know whether they are pleasing to God. If they are well advised, they beg solely for the forgiveness of their sin which lies like lead on their conscience. “That is,” the mystic explains, “the wisdom which is hidden in secret” (“abscondita in mysterio”), because our righteousness “being entirely dependent on God’s decree remains unknown to us.”[220]

Luther cannot assure us sufficiently often that man is nothing but sin, and sins in everything. His reason is that concupiscence remains in man after baptism. This concupiscence he looks upon as real sin, in fact it is the original sin, enduring original sin, so that original sin is not removed by baptism, remains obdurate to all subsequent justifying grace,[221] and, until death, can, at the utmost, only be diminished. He says expressly, quite against the Church’s teaching, that original sin is only covered over in baptism, and he tries to support this by a misunderstood text from Augustine and by misrepresenting Scholasticism.[222]