Читать книгу History of the Reformation - Thomas M. Lindsay - Страница 72

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A little before four o'clock, the marshal and Caspar Sturm, the herald, came to Luther's lodging to escort him to the audience hall. They led the Reformer into the street to conduct him to the Bishop's Palace, where the Emperor was living along with his younger brother Ferdinand, afterwards King of the Romans and Emperor, and where the Diet met.223 The streets were thronged; faces looked down from every window; men and women had crowded the roofs to catch a glimpse of Luther as he passed. It was difficult to force a way through the crowd, and, besides, Sturm, who was responsible for Luther's safety, feared that some Spaniard might deal the Reformer a blow with a dagger in the crowd. So the three turned into the court of the Swan Hotel; from it they got into the garden of the House of the Knights of St. John; and, as most of the courts and gardens of the houses communicated with each other, they were able to get into the court of the Bishop's Palace without again appearing on the street.224

The court of the Palace was full of people eager to see Luther, most of them evidently friendly. It was here that old General Frundsberg, the most illustrious soldier in Germany, who was to be the conqueror in the famous fight at Pavia, clapped Luther kindly on the shoulder, and said words which have been variously reported. “My poor monk! my little monk! thou art on thy way to make a stand as I and many of my knights have never done in our toughest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause, then forward in the name of God, and be of good courage: God will not forsake thee.” From out the crowd, “here and there and from every corner, came voices saying, ‘Play the man! Fear not death; it can but slay the body: there is a life beyond.’ ”225 They went up the stair and entered the audience hall, which was crammed. While the marshal and the herald forced a way for Luther, he passed an old acquaintance, the deputy from Augsburg. “Ah, Doctor Peutinger,” said Luther, “are you here too?”226 Then he was led to where he was to stand before the Emperor; and these two lifelong opponents saw each other for the first time. “The fool entered smiling,” says Aleander (perhaps the lingering of the smile with which he had just greeted Dr. Peutinger): “he looked slowly round, and his face sobered.” “When he faced the Emperor,” Aleander goes on to say, “he could not hold his head still, but moved it up and down and from side to side.”227 All eyes were fixed on Luther, and many an account was written describing his appearance. “A man of middle height,” says an unsigned Spanish paper preserved in the British Museum, “with a strong face, a sturdy build of body, with eyes that scintillated and were never still. He was clad in the robe of the Augustinian Order, but with a belt of hide, with a large tonsure, newly shaven, and a coronal of short thick hair.”228 All noticed his gleaming eyes; and it was remarked that when his glance fell on an Italian, the man moved uneasily in his seat, as if “the evil eye was upon him.” Meanwhile, in the seconds before the silence was broken, Luther was making his observations. He noticed the swarthy Jewish-looking face of Aleander, with its gleam of hateful triumph. “So the Jews must have looked at Christ,” he thought.229 He saw the young Emperor, and near him the papal nuncios and the great ecclesiastics of the Empire. A wave of pity passed through him as he looked. “He seemed to me,” he said, “like some poor lamb among swine and hounds.”230 There was a table or bench with some books upon it. When Luther's glance fell on them, he saw that they were his own writings, and could not help wondering how they had got there.231 He did not know that Aleander had been collecting them for some weeks, and that, at command of the Emperor, he had handed them over to John Eck, the Official of Trier, for the purposes of the audience.232 Jerome Schurf made his way to Luther's side, and stood ready to assist in legal difficulties.

The past and the future faced each other—the young Emperor in his rich robes of State, with his pale, vacant-looking face, but “carrying more at the back of his head than his countenance showed,” the descendant of long lines of kings, determined to maintain the beliefs, rites, and rules of that Mediæval Church which his ancestors had upheld; and the monk, with his wan face seamed with the traces of spiritual conflict and victory, in the poor dress of his Order, a peasant's son, resolute to cleave a way for the new faith of evangelical freedom, the spiritual birthright of all men.

The strained silence233 was broken by the Official of Trier, a man of lofty presence, saying, in a clear, ringing voice so that all could hear distinctly, first in Latin and then in German:

“ ‘Martin Luther, His Imperial Majesty, Sacred and Victorious (sacra et invicta), on the advice of all the Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, has ordered you to be summoned here to the throne of His Majesty, in order that you may recant and recall, according to the force, form, and meaning of the citation-mandate decreed against you by His Majesty and communicated legally to you, the books, both in Latin and in German, published by you and spread abroad, along with their contents: Wherefore I, in the name of His Imperial Majesty and of the Princes of the Empire, ask you: First, Do you confess that these books exhibited in your presence (I show him a bundle of books written in Latin and in German) and now named one by one, which have been circulated with your name on the title-page, are yours, and do you acknowledge them to be yours? Secondly, Do you wish to retract and recall them and their contents, or do you mean to adhere to them and to reassert them?’ ”234

The books were not named; so Jerome Schurf called out, “Let the titles be read.”235 Then the notary, Maximilian Siebenberger (called Transilvanus),236 stepped forward and, taking up the books one by one, read their titles and briefly described their contents.237 Then Luther, having briefly and precisely repeated the two questions put to him, said:

“ ‘To which I answer as shortly and correctly as I am able. I cannot deny that the books named are mine, and I will never deny any of them:238 they are all my offspring; and I have written some others which have not been named.239But as to what follows, whether I shall reaffirm in the same terms all, or shall retract what I may have uttered beyond the authority of Scripture—because the matter involves a question of faith and of the salvation of souls, and because it concerns the Word of God, which is the greatest thing in heaven and on earth, and which we all must reverence—it would be dangerous and rash in me to make any unpremeditated declaration, because in unpremeditated speech I might say something less than the fact and something more than the truth; besides, I remember the saying of Christ when He declared, “Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven, and before His angels.” For these reasons I beg, with all respect, that your Imperial Majesty give me time to deliberate, that I may answer the question without injury to the Word of God and without peril to my own soul.’ ”240

Luther made his answer in a low voice—so low that the deputies from Strassburg, who were sitting not far from him, said that they could not hear him distinctly.241 Many present inferred from the low voice that Luther's spirit was broken, and that he was beginning to be afraid. But from what followed it is evident that Luther's whole procedure on this first appearance before the Diet was intended to defeat the intrigues of Aleander, which had for their aim to prevent the Reformer addressing the Diet in a long speech; and in this he succeeded, as Brück and Spalatin hoped he would.

The Estates then proceeded to deliberate on Luther's request. Aleander says that the Emperor called his councillors about him; that the Electors talked with each other; and that the separate Estates deliberated separately.242 We are informed by the report of the Venetian ambassadors that there was some difficulty among some of them in acceding to Luther's request. But at length the Official of Trier again addressed Luther:

“ ‘Martin, you were able to know from the imperial mandate why you were summoned here, and therefore you do not really require any time for further deliberation, nor is there any reason why it should be granted. Yet His Imperial Majesty, moved by his natural clemency, grants you one day for deliberation, and you will appear here tomorrow at the same hour—but on the understanding that you do not give your answer in writing, but by word of mouth.’ ”243

The sitting, which, so far as Luther was concerned, had occupied about an hour, was then declared to be ended, and he was conducted back to his room by the herald. There he sat down and wrote to his friend Cuspinian in Vienna “from the midst of the tumult”:

“This hour I have been before the Emperor and his brother, and have been asked whether I would recant my books. I have said that the books were really mine, and have asked for some delay about recantation. They have given me no longer space and time than till to-morrow for deliberation. Christ helping me, I do not mean to recant one jot or tittle.”244