Catharinus by a circuitous route to the secluded castle of Wartburg, GERMANY. which belonged to his unswerving patron, the elector of Saxony. In the disguise of Junker George, he was enabled to pursue his theological labours, and completed what has ever since been felt to be among his very best productions,— the translation of the New Testaments into the standard dialect of Saxony. His active pen was also keenly occupied in controversial literature. Perhaps the boldest of Writes against his new essays was the answer to Catharinus7, a young and others. Thomist and Dominican, who ventured to defend the most extreme opinions on the papal supremacy. In this treatise while vigorously assailing the main position of his adversary, Luther did not hesitate to argue that the only notes or characteristics of a christian church are the two sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist, and more especially the Word of God. He also dedicated separate works to the his disappearance caused among his friends and admirers is well expressed in a lament of Albert Dürer, quoted in Gieseler, III. I. p. 95, n. 81. 4 Ego otiosus hic et crapulosus sedeo tota die: Bibliam Græcam et Hebræam lego. Scribo sermonem vernaculum de confessionis auricularis libertate: Psalterium etiam prosequar, et Postillas ubi e Wittemberga accepero, quibus opus habeo, inter quæ et Magnificat inchoatum expecto.' De Wette, II. 6. The first edition appeared in September, 1522. The translation of the Old Testament was postponed (cf. De Wette, II. 123) for a short time, in order that he might consult his literary friends; but one part of it also appeared in 1523. The first complete edition of the Lutheran Bible, including the Apocrypha, was not published till 1534. On the older German versions of the Scriptures, see Middle Age, p. 384, n. 2; and cf. The Bible of Every Land, p. 175, Lond. 1848, and Audin, Hist. de Luther, 1. 496 sq. 6 Besides those mentioned in the text, he wrote a fiery Confutatio of 7 Cf. De Wette, I. 569, 570, 582. 8 Fol. 356 b. He had also arrived at the conclusion that the 'synagogue of Papists and Thomists' was not the Church, but Babylon, 'nisi parvulos et simplices exceperis.' GERMANY. denunciation of 'private masses1,' and 'monastic vows,' the former being in his eye an impious mechanism for elevating the clergy, and the latter an invasion of Christian liberty, and one of the impostures by which Satan had propped up the current theory of human merit. The furious vehemence that breathes throughout these treatises, an index of the mental tempest3 in the midst of which they were composed, would naturally enkindle a desire in his more zealous followers to eradicate the system which had countenanced such vast and manifold enormities. The great reformer was himself indeed opposed to popular demonstrations which might lead to violent intermeddling with established usages, and so embarrass the civil power. Carlstadt and But he soon found that he had been unconsciously stimulating passions which neither he nor his temperate colleagues were able to control in Wittenberg itself. The leader of these ultra-reformers was Carlstadt. Regardless of all counsels which suggested the propriety of pausing till the multitude could be more thoroughly instructed in the ultra reformers. 1 Opp. II. fol. 441 sq. This work, of which the German title is Vom Missbrauch der Messen, was dedicated to his brother-friars the Augustines of Wittenberg, Nov. 1, 1521, but was not published till January 1522' cf. De Wette, II. 106 sq. The Augustines had already desisted from the performance of 'private' masses. 2 Opp. II. fol. 477 b, sq. It was dedicated (Nov. 21, 1521) to his father: cf. De Wette, II. 100 sq. He had some time before made up his mind as to the lawfulness of marriage in the secular clergy, such as Carlstadt; but the members of religious orders who had bound themselves by special vows appeared to occupy a different position. He had soon afterwards (March 28, 1522) to deplore irregularities committed by several monks, who acted out his principles: Video monachos nostros multos,' he wrote to John Lange, one of the self-emancipated friars, 'exire nulla causa alia quam qua intraverant, hoc est, ventris et libertatis carnalis gratia, per quos Satanas magnum fætorem in nostri verbi odorem bonum excitabit.' 3 During his seclusion at Wartburg, Luther was assaulted by temptations to sensuality which he had scarcely known before: see his letters of July 13 and Nov. 4, 1521 (De Wette, II. 21, 89). So violent also were his mental agitations that, while occupied in preparing his treatise on the abuses of the mass, he believed that he was visited at midnight by the Evil Spirit, and constrained to hold a conference with him on that subject. Luther himself published a narrative of this interview in 1533: cf. Waddington, I. 398, 399; Audin, I. 421 sq. the nature of the change proposed, he altered the eucha- GERMANY. ristic office on his own authority, abolishing the custom of previous confession, administering the elements in both kinds, and neglecting most of the usual ceremonies. One important section of the German church who hitherto beheld the march of the reformers with unmingled sympathy, had now seen cause to hesitate and tremble for the issue. Their forebodings were increased on learning that Rise of Anathe town of Zwickau in Misnia, which had also felt the impulse of the Lutheran movement, was already giving birth to the distempered sect of Anabaptists, whose fanaticism, it will be noticed afterwards, imparted a distinctive shape and colour to the history of the times. baptism, 1521. Exactly when these troubles were assuming their most formidable aspect, Luther reappeared at Wittenberg, (March 7, 1522). He saw that nothing but his own per- Luther's consonal influence could restrain or even regulate the torrent 4 See the account in Melancthon's Works, ed. Bretschneider, I. 512. He had already attempted something of the kind in October 1521, but did not carry out his plan fully until the next Christmas-day: Ranke, II. 19. 5 See Chapter v. On the sects and heresies accompanying the new movement. The genuine representatives of the reformation at Zwickau were Frederic Myconius, a Franciscan priest, who became associated with Luther in 1518, and a second of his intimate friends, Nicholas Hausmann. 6 Three of the leading Anabaptists, to escape from the police, took refuge in Wittenberg, at the very end of the year 1521. On the first of January, 1522, Melancthon speaks of them as then present (Works, I. 533). He was himself, in the first instance, too favourably disposed towards them (ibid. 1. 513: 'Magnis rationibus adducor certe, ut contemni eos nolim'). The point to which, after their prophetic gifts, they ventured to assign the chief importance, was a denial of infant sternation, GERMANY. which was threatening to involve his work in the destruc tion he had planned for mediæval errors; and therefore in spite of all the anxious fears of Frederic, who had little chance of screening him from the imperial ban, he vowed with characteristic heroism, that, cost him what it might, a vigorous effort must be instantly made to vindicate his teaching. It is highly probable that the intense emotion caused by these disorders at Wittenberg contributed in and reappear- some degree to moderate the whole of his future conduct. tenberg, 1522. He had now discovered that one tendency of the reforming ance at Wit movement which he headed, was to shake men's faith not only in what may be termed erroneous excrescences, but in the body of the truth itself; that intellectual, if not moral, license would readily supervene on the removal of the ancient yoke; and that accordingly his followers must be guarded from the serious dangers which beset them, both upon the right hand and the left. He acted in this spirit when on Sunday, March 9, 1522, he resumed his pastoral duties. Carlstadt was condemned to silence 2; the apostles of Anabaptism were dismissed in very coarse but truthful language; all the customary service was restored, except those passages in the Canon of the mass which plainly pointed to the notion of material sacrifice; the 1 See his very spirited letter to the Elector (March 5, 1522): De Wette, II. 137 sq. The importance he attached to the present crisis was shewn in the following passage: 'Alles, was bisher mir zu Leide gethan ist in dieser Sachen, ist Schimpf und nichts gewesen. Ich wollts auch, wenn es hätte können seyn, mit meinem Leben gern erkauft haben' (p. 138): cf. Audin, I. 481 sq. Luther's own account of this step (March 30, 1522) is worthy of especial notice: Ego Carolstadium offendi, quod ordinationes suas cassavi, licet doctrinam non damnarim, nisi quod displicet in solis cæremoniis et externis faciebus laborasse eum, neglecta interim vera doctrina Christiana, hoc est, fide et charitate. Nam sua inepta docendi ratione eo populum perduxerat, ut sese Christianum arbitraretur per has res nihili, si utraque specie communicaret, si tangeret [i.e. the consecrated elements], si non confiteretur, si imagines frangeret. En malitiam Satanæ, ut per novam speciem molitus est erigere ad ruinam Evangelii:' De Wette, II. 177: cf. Waddington, II. II, 12. The mystical turn of Carlstadt had already excited the distrust of his former colleague. 3 See Letters of April, ibid. pp. 179, 181, and the fuller account of Camerarius, Vit. Melancthonis, § 15. Eucharist was now administered under one or both kinds GERMANY. indifferently; and it is even noticeable in Luther's teaching from the pulpit, that he laid far greater emphasis upon the need of sobriety and Christian charity, as fruits and consequences of justifying faith". War. A second cause, however, soon conspired to bring the Peasants' Lutheran doctrines into fresh discredit. They were taking root both far and wide, when elements of discord and insubordination, such as we already witnessed in the Bohemian Taborites, broke out into the Peasants' War 6 (1524). The leaders of this insurrection were tainted by the Anabaptist doctrines recently suppressed at Wittenberg, and some were probably instigated by the violent harangues of Carlstadt, and other preachers of his school". 4 Cf. Ranke, II. 39, 40, Audin, II. 16 sq.; and especially the course of sermons which Luther preached at this conjuncture on masses, pictures, communion in both kinds, and other controverted subjects (Schriften, ed. Walch, xx. I sq.) He had now fairly apprehended a truth which afterwards served him on many trying occasions, viz. that all ecclesiastical rites and usages were legitimate, provided they did not contravene some clear statement of Holy Writ ("Quod ergo non est contra Scripturam, pro Scriptura est, et Scriptura pro eo:' De Wette, I. 128). On this principle he retained a large proportion of the medieval usages, (cf. his earliest liturgical regulations in Daniel's Codex Lit. Eccl. Luther. PP. 75-112). 'Fallitur mundus,' wrote Melancthon soon afterwards (Works, I. 657), 'cum unum hoc agi a Luthero judicat, ut publicæ cæremoniæ aboleantur....Verum non de cæremoniis dimicat Lutherus, majus quoddam docet, quid intersit inter hominum justitiam et Dei justitiam.' On the contrary, it is quite clear that in the application and working out of his convictions, Luther was continually guilty of extravagance. Not long after his return to Wittenberg, The diffusion of the new opinions 6 See Ranke's excellent sketch of this outbreak, Reform. Bk. III. ch. vi. A fermentation had been already going on for more than thirty years. 7 On their expulsion from Saxony, both Carlstadt and the Anabaptist Thomas Müntzer went into the district of e Upper Rhine. It is not quite clear, however, that the former |