Читать книгу Luther - Grisar Hartmann - Страница 79

After these few words regarding the object and origin of the celebrated letter to the Emperor, we may go on to quote some of the statements it contains. Luther, at the commencement, protests that he presents himself before Charles “like a flea before the King of kings, who reigns over all.” “It was against my will that I came before the public, I wrote only because others traitorously forced me to it by violence and cunning; never did I desire anything but to remain in the retirement of my cell. My conscience and the best men bear me witness that I have merely endeavoured to defend the truth of the Gospel against the opinions introduced by superstitious traditions. For three years I have, in consequence, been exposed to every kind of insult and danger. In vain did I beg for pardon, offer to be silent, propose conditions of peace, and request enlightenment. I am, nevertheless, persecuted, the sole object being to stamp out the Gospel along with me.”

Things being thus, “prostrate before him,” he begs the Emperor to protect, not indeed one who lies “poor and helpless in the dust,” but, at least, the treasure of truth, since he, the greatest secular sovereign, has been entrusted with the temporal sword for the maintenance of truth and the restraint of wickedness; as for himself, he only desired to be called to account in a fair manner, and to see his teaching either properly refuted, or duly accepted by all. He was ready to betake himself to any public disputation, so he declares in the “Protestation,” and would submit to the decision of any unprejudiced University; he would present himself before any judges, saintly or otherwise, clerical or lay, provided only they were just, and that he was given state protection and a safe conduct. If they were able to convince him by proofs from Holy Scripture, he would become a humble pupil, and obediently relinquish an enterprise undertaken—this, at least, he would assert without undue self-exaltation—only for the honour of God, the salvation of souls and the good of Christianity, simply because he was a doctor, and without any hope of praise or profit.

This manifesto was sufficient to satisfy the Elector Frederick. The growing esteem in which Luther was held and the delay in the settlement of his case served admirably Frederick’s purpose of making himself less dependent on the Emperor and Empire. Calculation and politics thus played their part in an affair which to some extent they shaped.

At a later date, it is true, Luther asserted in the preface to his Latin works, that his success had been the result only of Heaven’s visible protection; that he had quietly “awaited the decision of the Church and the Holy Ghost”; only one thing, namely, the Catechism, he had been unable to see condemned by the interference of Rome; to deny Christ he could never consent. He was willing to confess his former weaknesses “in order that—to speak like Paul—men may not esteem me for something more than I am, but as a simple man.”[53]

From the pulpit, too, where honest truth usually finds expression, he declared that it was not violence or human effort or wisdom that had crowned his cause with the laurels of victory, but God alone: “I studied God’s Word and preached and wrote on it; beyond this I did nothing. The Word of God did much while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip [Melanchthon] and Amsdorf, so that Popery has been weakened and suffered more than from the attacks of any Prince or Emperor. I did nothing; everything was achieved and carried out by the Word.”[54] His object here is to oppose the violence and fanaticism of the Anabaptists, and, if he points out to them that he has achieved his mighty work without force of arms, and that the great success of his movement was out of all proportion to the means he could employ as professor and preacher—the truth being that his success was chiefly due to the circumstances of the time—there is much in his contention.

In the circle of his friends, at a later date, he thus expressed his conviction: “I did not begin the difficult business of my own initiative … rather it was God who led me in a wonderful manner. … All happened in accordance with God’s will.”[55] “I thought I was doing the Pope a service [by throwing light upon the question of Indulgences]; but I was forced to defend myself.” “Had I foreseen that things would turn out as, thank God, they have, I would have held my tongue; but had I kept silence it would have fared much worse with the Papacy; the Princes and the Powers, enraged at its usurpations, would finally have made an end of it.” “I acted with moderation and yet I have brought the Papacy to an evil day.”[56]

The genius of history could well hide its face were such statements accepted as reliable testimonies.

Certain extracts from Luther’s correspondence with Spalatin deserve special consideration.

The worldly-wise Chaplain of Frederick, the Saxon Elector, frequently gave Luther a hint as to how to proceed, and, in return, his Wittenberg friend was wont to speak to him more openly than to others. It is, however, necessary, in order to arrive at a right appreciation of this correspondence, to distinguish between the letters written by Luther to Spalatin as a personal friend and those he sent him with the intention that they should reach the ruling Prince. It would betray a great lack of critical discrimination were the whole correspondence with Spalatin taken as the expression of Luther’s innermost thought. The fact that Spalatin’s letters to Luther are no longer extant makes it even more difficult to understand Luther’s replies. Nevertheless, it is easy to trace a persistent effort throughout the correspondence, to secure in the Saxon Electorate toleration both for the new teaching and its originator without arousing the misgivings of a prudent sovereign. The Court had to be won over gradually and gently.

Acting on Spalatin’s advice, Luther made the following declaration for the benefit of the Elector, on March 5, 1519: “The Roman Decrees must allow me full liberty with regard to the true Gospel; of whatever else they may rob me, I don’t care. What more can I do, or can I be bound to anything further?”[57]

“If they do not confute us on reasonable grounds and by written proofs,” he says, on July 10, 1520, in another letter addressed to Spalatin, but really intended for the Elector, “but proceed against us by force and censures, then things will become twice as bad in Germany as in Bohemia” [an allusion to the Husite apostasy].[58] “Where then can I turn for better instruction?”[59] … “Let His Highness the Prince,” he here writes, coming to the question of the University professorship which provided him with his means of livelihood, “put me out into the street so that I may either be better instructed or confuted.” He, for his part, is ready to resign his public appointment, retire into private life, allow others to take his place, and let all his belongings be burned. But he also thinks it just that the Elector, being personally unable to instruct him, should also refuse to act either as judge or as executioner until a (true ecclesiastical) sentence be pronounced. The principal thing is, so he says, that “the question under discussion has not been solved, and my enemies have not touched it with so much as a single word. The Prince, under these circumstances, may well refuse to punish anyone, even though he be a Turk or a Jew, for he is in ignorance whether he be guilty or not; his conscience bids him pause, and how then can the Romanists demand that he should step in and obey men rather than God?”

Thereupon Frederick, the Elector, actually wrote to Rome that Luther was ready to be better instructed from Holy Scripture by learned judges; no one could reproach him, the Prince; he was far from “extending protection to the writings and sermons of Dr. Martin Luther,” or “from tolerating any errors against the Holy Catholic faith.”[60]

At the very last moment before the promulgation of the Bull of Excommunication, Luther made offers of “peace” to the Roman Court through Cardinal Carvajal, professing to be ready to accept any conditions, provided he was left free to teach the Word, and was not ordered to retract. This step was taken to safeguard his public position and his future; Spalatin, and through him the Elector, received due notification of the fact on August 23, 1520.[61]

Yet only a few weeks before, on July 10, he had already expressly assured the same friend privately: “The die is cast; I despise alike the favour and the fury of the Romans; I refuse to be reconciled with them, or to have anything whatever to do with them … I will openly attack and destroy the whole Papal system, that pestilential quagmire of heresies; then there will be an end to the humility and consideration of which I have made a show, but which has only served to puff up the foes of the Gospel.”[62]

He had also not omitted, at the same time, to bring to the knowledge of the Elector, through his same friend at Court, the promise of a guard of one hundred noblemen, recently made by Silvester von Schauenberg; he likewise begged that an intimation of the fact might be conveyed to Rome, that they might see that his safety was assured, and might then cease from threatening him with excommunication and its consequences. “Were they to drive me from Wittenberg,” he adds, “nothing would be gained, and the case would only be made worse; for my men-at-arms are stationed not only in Bohemia, but in the very centre of Germany, and will protect me should I be driven away, for they are determined to defy any assault.” “If I have these at my back then it is to be feared that I shall attack the Romanists much more fiercely from my place of safety than if I were allowed to remain in my professorship and in the service of the Prince [at Wittenberg], which is what will certainly happen unless God walls otherwise. Hitherto I have been unwilling to place the Prince in any difficulty; once expelled, all such scruples will vanish.”[63]

In conclusion, he extols his great consideration for the Prince. “It is only the respect I owe my sovereign, and my regard for the interests of the University [of Wittenberg] that the Romanists have to thank for the fact that worse things have not been done by me; that they escaped so lightly they owe neither to my modesty, nor to their action and tyranny.”

All the diplomacy which he cultivated with so much calculation did not, however, hinder his giving free course to the higher inspiration with which he believed himself to be endowed; the result was a series of works which may be numbered among the most effective of his controversial writings. He there fights, to employ his own language, “for Christ’s sake new battles against Satan,” as Deborah, the prophetess, fought “new wars” for Israel (Judges v. 8).[64]

In Luther we find a singular combination of the glowing enthusiast and cool diplomatist. Just as it would be wrong to see in him nothing but hypocrisy and deception without a spark of earnestness and self-sacrifice, so too, at the other extreme, we should not be justified in speaking of his success as simply the result of enthusiasm and entire surrender of earthly considerations. History discerns in him a combatant full of passion indeed, yet one who was cool-headed enough to choose the best means to his end.