13. Opposition to Luther
J H Merle d’Aubigné
The reproaches, the timidity and the silence of his friends had discouraged Luther; the attacks of his enemies produced a contrary effect. This often happens: the adversaries of the truth, who hope by their violence to do their own work, do that of God Himself. Tetzel took up the gauntlet, but with a feeble hand. Luther’s sermon, which had been for the people what the theses had been for the learned, was the object of his first reply. He refuted this discourse point by point, after his own fashion; he then announced that he was preparing to meet his adversary more fully in certain theses which he would maintain at the University of Frankfort on the Oder.
One thing strikes us as we read Tetzel’s reply: the difference between the German employed by him and Luther. One might say they were several ages apart. A foreigner, in particular, sometimes finds it difficult to understand Tetzel, while Luther’s language is almost entirely that of our own days. A comparison of their writings shows that Luther is the creator of modern German. This is no doubt one of his least merits; still it is one.
Luther replied without naming Tetzel; Tetzel had not named him. But there was no one in Germany but could recognise who had written each publication. “The penance imposed by the holy father cannot be that required by Christ,”2 wrote Luther, “for what the holy father imposes he can dispense with; and if these two penances were one and the same thing, it would follow that the Pope takes away what Christ imposes, and destroys the commandment of God.” He continues: “He who purchases indulgences, our adversaries repeat, does better than he who gives alms to a poor man who is not reduced to the last extremity”. Luther goes on ironically: “Let him who desires to follow this precept, beware of feeding the hungry, or of clothing the naked, before they die, and consequently have no more need of assistance.”
It is important to compare Luther’s zeal for good works with what he says on justification by faith. The more we see the necessity of works, the more we become willing to practise them; Luther and Paul before him are proofs of this assertion. When Luther comes to Tetzel’s invectives, he answers them thus: “When I hear these invectives, I fancy it is an ass braying at me. I am delighted with them, and I should be very sorry were such people to call
1This is a further abridged extract from d’Aubigné’s The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, vol 1. Last month’s article described some of the reaction to Luther’s 95 Theses, written in response to the sale of indulgences by Tetzel near Wittenberg.
2The “penance” Christ requires is, more accurately, repentance.
me a good Christian.” We must represent Luther as he was, with all his weaknesses. A turn for jesting, and even for coarse jesting, was one of them. The Reformer was a great man, a man of God, no doubt, but he was still a man and not an angel and he was not even a perfect man.
Luther did not lack courage. He relied on the Word of God, and it is a rock that never fails us in the storm. But God in His faithfulness afforded him other assistance. The burst of joy by which the multitude welcomed Luther’s theses, had been soon followed by a gloomy silence. The learned had timidly retreated before the abuse of Tetzel and the Dominicans. The bishops, who had previously exclaimed against the abuse of indulgences, seeing them attacked at last, claimed that the attack was unseasonable. The greater portion of the Reformer’s friends were alarmed. Many had fled away. But when the first terror was over, a contrary movement took place in their minds. Luther had for some time been almost alone in the Church, but a numerous body of friends and admirers soon gathered around him again.
There was one who, although timid, remained faithful during this crisis and whose friendship was Luther’s consolation and support. This was Spalatin. Their correspondence was not interrupted. “I thank you,” said Luther, speaking of a particular mark of friendship that he had received, “but for what am I not indebted to you? . . . We can do nothing of ourselves: we can do everything by God’s grace. All ignorance is invincible for us; no ignorance is invincible for the grace of God. The more we endeavour, of ourselves, to attain wisdom, the nearer we approach to folly.”
If Spalatin consoled his friend and supported him by his influence, Luther endeavoured to answer the questions put to him by the unassuming chaplain. Among them was: “What is the best method of studying Scripture?”
“As yet, most excellent Spalatin,” Luther replied, “you have only asked me things that were in my power. But to direct you in the study of the Holy Scriptures is beyond my ability. If, however, you absolutely wish to know my method, I will not conceal it from you. It is certain that we cannot attain to the understanding of Scripture either by study or by the intellect. Your first duty is to begin by prayer. Entreat the Lord to grant you, of His great mercy, the true understanding of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of this Word, as He Himself has said: ‘They shall be all taught of God’. Hope for nothing from your own labours, from your own understanding; trust solely in God, and in the influence of His Spirit. Believe this on the word of a man who has had experience.”
We here see how Luther arrived at the possession of the truth which he preached. It was not by trusting presumptuously to his reason or by giving way to evil passions. He drank from the purest source: God Himself, whom
he consulted in humility, confidence and prayer. Luther had done nothing to circulate his theses. He declared, “My design was not to give my theses such publicity. I only desired to confer on their contents with some of those who remain with us or near us. If they had been condemned, I would have destroyed them. If they had been approved of, I purposed publishing them. But they have now been printed over and over again, and circulated so far beyond all my hopes that I repent of my offspring – not because I am afraid of the truth being made known to the people. It was this alone I sought, but that is not the way to instruct them. They contain questions that are still doubtful to me, and if I had thought my theses would have created such a sensation, there are some things I should have omitted and others I should have asserted with greater confidence.”
In after years Luther thought differently. Far from fearing he had said too much, he declared that he ought to have said much more. “You will find in my earlier writings,” he said many years afterwards, “that I very humbly conceded many things to the Pope, and even important things, that now I regard and detest as abominable and blasphemous.”
Men’s minds had recovered a little from their first alarm. Luther himself felt inclined to declare that his theses had not the scope attributed to them. But the partisans of Rome fanned the flame instead of quenching it. Tetzel and the Dominicans replied with insolence to the attack that had been made on them. Bursting with the desire of crushing the impudent monk who had dared to trouble their commerce, and of conciliating the favour of the Roman pontiff, they maintained that to attack the indulgence ordained by the Pope was to attack the Pope himself, and they summoned to their aid all the monks and divines of their school.
Tetzel indeed felt that an adversary like Luther was too much for him alone. Greatly exasperated at Luther’s attack, he left the vicinity of Wittenberg, and went to Frankfort on the Oder, where he arrived in November 1517. Conrad Wimpina, an eloquent man and one of the most distinguished theologians of the age, was a professor in the university there. Tetzel requested him to answer Luther’s theses, and Wimpina wrote two lists of anti-theses, the first being to defend the doctrine of indulgences, and the second the authority of the Pope.
On 20 January 1518 that disputation took place on which Tetzel founded such great hopes. Monks had been sent from all the cloisters in the neighbourhood, about 300 of them. Tetzel read his theses; they even contained this declaration, “Whoever says that the soul does not escape out of purgatory so soon as the money tinkles in the chest, is in error”. Above all, he put forward propositions according to which the Pope seemed actually seated as God in the temple of God, according to the Apostle’s expression (2 Th 2:4). It was
convenient for this shameless trafficker to take shelter, with all his disorders and scandals, under the mantle of the Pope.
Tetzel declared himself ready to maintain, among others, the following propositions:
“3. We should teach Christians that the Pope, by the greatness of his power, is above the whole universal Church and superior to the councils, and that we should implicitly obey his decrees.
“5. We should teach Christians that the judgement of the Pope cannot err, in matters concerning the Christian faith, or which are necessary to the salvation of the human race.
“6. We should teach Christians that, in matters of faith, we should rely and reprove more on the Pope’s sentiments, as made known by his decisions, than on the opinions of all the learned which are derived merely from Scripture.”
This affair, about which there had been so much noise, seemed likely to be a sham fight, but among the crowd of students present was a John Knipstrow, about 20 years of age. He had read Luther’s theses and had found them consistent with the doctrines of Scripture. Indignant at seeing the truth publicly trodden under foot, without any one appearing in its defence, this young man raised his voice, to the astonishment of the assembly, and attacked Tetzel. Not reckoning on any opposition, he was quite confused. Soon he gave way to Wimpina, who resisted more vigorously. But Knipstrow pressed him so closely that, to finish the struggle, he as chairman declared the disputation over, and immediately proceeded to confer the degree of doctor on Tetzel to repay him for his glorious combat. In order to get rid of the young orator, Wimpina had him sent to the convent of Pyrzyce [now in Poland], with an order that he should be strictly watched. But this dawning light was sent away only to diffuse not long after a greater light throughout the district of Pomerania. When God thinks fit, he employs even learners to confound teachers.
Tetzel, wishing to recover from the check he had experienced, had recourse to the last resort of Rome and the inquisitors: fire. He had a pulpit and scaffold erected near Frankfort. He went there in solemn procession, with his insignia of inquisitor of the faith. From the pulpit he hurled thunderbolts, and exclaimed that the heretic Luther deserved to suffer death at the stake. Then, placing Luther’s theses and sermon on the scaffold, he burnt them. He knew better how to do this than to maintain his theses. His victory was complete.
Tetzel’s second theses form an important epoch in the Reformation. They changed the ground of dispute: they diverted it from the indulgence markets
to the Vatican, from Tetzel to the Pope. Luther was astonished, but it is probable that he would before long have taken this step himself; his enemies spared him the trouble. The blow by which a daring hand had tried to demolish Tetzel’s shop shook the very foundations of the pontifical throne.
An uproar against Luther broke out among the monks, infuriated at the appearance of a more formidable adversary than either Reuchlin or Erasmus. The Dominicans called the bold doctor a madman, a seducer, and a demoniac. His doctrine was cried down as the most horrible heresy. “Only wait a fortnight, or a month at most,” they said, and this notorious heretic will be burnt”. If it had depended solely on the Dominicans, the fate of Jerome of Prague and of Huss would soon have been that of Luther also, but God was watching over him.
When Luther was informed of Tetzel’s theses, and of the general attack of which they were the signal, his courage immediately took fire. He felt the necessity of opposing such adversaries face to face; his intrepid soul had no difficulty in coming to such a decision. He did not, however, give way to those sentiments of pride so natural to man’s heart. “I have more difficulty to refrain from despising my adversaries,” he wrote about this time to Spalatin, “and from sinning in this way against Jesus Christ, than I should have in conquering them.” But the strongest encouragement to his heart, in the midst of this general hostility, was the intimate conviction that his cause was that of truth. “Do not be surprised,” he wrote to Spalatin at the beginning of 1518, “that I am so grossly insulted. I listen to their abuse with joy. If they did not curse me, we could not be so firmly assured that the cause I have undertaken is that of God Himself. Christ has been set up for a sign to be spoken against.”
One thing, however, sometimes agitated Luther: the thought of the dissensions his courageous opposition might produce. He knew that a single word might set the world on fire. At times his imagination beheld prince arrayed against prince, and perhaps people against people. He would have desired peace; yet he must speak, for such was the Lord’s will.
He still kept silent about Tetzel’s theses concerning the Pope. Had he been carried away by passion, he would, no doubt, have instantly fallen upon that astonishing doctrine, under the shelter of which his adversary sought to protect himself. But he waited, yet not from weakness. Tetzel had hastened to send his theses into Saxony. He expected them to serve as an antidote to Luther’s. A man from Halle, commissioned by the inquisitor to circulate his theses, arrived at Wittenberg. The students of the university, still indignant that Tetzel should have burnt their master’s theses, had scarcely heard of his arrival before they sought him out, surrounded him and frightened him. “How
dare you bring such things here?” they said. Some of them bought some of the copies he had with him, others seized the remainder. They thus became masters of his whole stock, amounting to 800 copies; and then, unknown to the authorities and Luther, they announced the burning of Tetzel’s theses in the market place at 2 o’clock.
Luther was deeply pained at the disturbance. But the burning of these theses shows how the hearts of the young already glowed for the cause which Luther defended. This was a sign of great importance; for a movement which has taken hold of youth is soon propagated throughout the nation.
Though little esteemed, Tetzel’s theses aggravated the dispute; they widened the rent in the mantle of the Church; they brought questions of the highest interest into the controversy. Accordingly the leaders of the Church began to take a closer view of the matter, and to declare strongly against the Reformer. “Truly,” said the Bishop of Brandenburg, “I do not know on whom Luther relies, since he thus ventures to attack the power of the bishops.” Perceiving that new measures were called for, the Bishop came to Wittenberg. But he found Luther animated with that inward joy which springs from a good conscience and determined to give battle. The Bishop returned in anger to Brandenburg. One day during the winter of 1518, he said, “I will not lay my head down in peace until I have thrown Martin into the fire”. The revolution of the sixteenth century was not to be accomplished by the heads of the Church, any more than that of the first century had been by the sanhedrin.